6 ms·

When thinking about names: in Norway it's quite common to take both parents' names now. So I'm MKS (initials), where Mats is my first name, K is my middle name

When thinking about names: in Norway it's quite common to take both parents' names now. So I'm MKS (initials), where Mats is my first name, K is my middle name being mother's surname, and S my dad's surname. I think it's great to have a connection to both families, and that my mother and dad combines instead of one having to "give up" some of their identity But what happens next generation? When a partner named ABC with two surnames should be combined with my name. Should a kid then be named DBCKS? And then it doubles every generation? Or should both parents pick one and pass on? And then which one? The father line as always?

adrian_b 2y ago
If everyone had two family names, one from mother and one from father, then the two names of child would be chosen one from the two names of the mother and one from the two names of the father. The choice could be random or by preference. This would match the way how chromosomes are passed from the parents. Neglecting the crossover (whose effect is only that the sequence pairs between which a random choice is made are smaller than the chromosomes), for each pair of chromosomes one is taken from the mother and one from the father. The choice of which of the two chromosomes of the mother and of which of the two chromosomes of the mother are taken, is random. I believe that this would be a better system for naming people. A random choice of which family name to take from each parent might be preferable, to avoid the reduction in number of the possible family names, if some would be preferred much more often than others.
- jhrmnn 2y ago
  And so we could follow the sex chromosome and mitochondrial DNA convention—you’d inherit the grandma’s surname from your mother and the grandpa’s surname from your father.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    This is indeed a possible variant of the system. This variant could lead to a split of the set of existing family names into two disjoint subsets, one that is passed through females and one that is passed through males. I do not think that this split could create problems, unless at the date when the system would be introduced there would happen to be a serious imbalance between the number of family names carried by females and the number of family names carried by males, which might be then preserved by the system.
- hammock 2y ago
  Interesting thought , tying to chromosomal inheritance. Since one of the chief uses of surnames historically was to track family (financial) inheritance
- tadfisher 2y ago
  Are we considering mitochondrial DNA? Because that is always passed down from the mother's line, so maybe we should always use the mother's maiden name as the "last" name to preserve this trait.
- abecedarius 2y ago
  There was a 70s science fiction future where customarily both parents adopted a new last name when they married. Seemed the obvious sensible policy for women's lib without a 2^N name-length scaling with the generations. I only know one person who's done that. In some ways there's been less future shock than we expected.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    I know a couple who combined half each of their original surnames to create a new surname. I thought it was a cool idea, but of course won't work for everyone's names. Their "invented" name turned out to be a fairly reasonable surname that is probably in not-uncommon use in general, so that worked well for them. I feel like that could kinda work for my wife's name and my name, but the possible new combinations still sound a little off to me. (We both kept our original surnames.)
    - abecedarius 2y ago
      Reminds me of the O’Whielacronxes! Though I'd be surprised if that was ever their legal name.
    - pempem 2y ago
      Villaraigosa did this - the former mayor of LA. He got divorced and kept the name, so hard to say what happens down the line there. I tried supremely hard to merge my partner's last name and my own but each iteration sounded multiples worse than our own last names. We've kept our original surnames and given our kiddo a hyphenated one.
  - heyjamesknight 2y ago
    My wife and I did this. Seemed like an elegant solution to the problem.
  - aegis4244 2y ago
    My partner and I did exactly that. She let me choose. Ended up with the surname from one of my favorite literary characters. Changed my first name to match as well. Happened to be a childhood nick name anyway, so I've always answered to it.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  Alternatively, you can make the choice to have matrilineal, patrilineal or both lines. My first wife and I hyphenated our names after we committed to naming any son we had with my last name and any daughter with hers. We only had 1 child (a daughter) before we divorced, but that daughter carries her mother's family name only, not mine.
- tempestn 2y ago
  You could also pass the father's name to boys and the mother's name to girls. Or all children get the same combined name based on the father's father's name and the mother's mother's name. So both matrilineal and patrilineal lines would be propagated.
- gpvos 2y ago
  I've always thought, in a single-surname system, it would be most fair to give girls their mother's surname and boys their father's (throw a dice for intersex children).
- pinoceros 2y ago
  Courtney Taylor-Taylor, American songwriter and musician, hyphenated both of his parents' (married) last names as a joke on this.
tadfisher 2y ago
We did this for our children as a US couple, and didn't even make the connection to Scandanavian practices (my wife's heritage, coincidentally). We likened it to the Spanish practice of having two surnames, without the confusion of having four names (due to Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names [0]). [0] "People have exactly N names, for any value of N." --https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...
KPGv2 2y ago
> But what happens next generation? When a partner named ABC with two surnames should be combined with my name Look to Hispanic countries. They've been dealing with this for a very long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs Generally, if a parent has two surnames, the child will take the first of them, so you normally will have two surnames, the first or only from your father, and the first or only from your mother. (Note that this algorithm does eliminate matrilineal names, because a child will effectively be receiving their two surnames from their grandfathers. From what I understand, if the genetic lineage is particularly elite, you might keep more. My wife grew up in Latin America among the Hispanic elite, and apparently some of her friends had more than two surnames because their bloodlines were extremely blue and they wanted to preserve reference to the lineage. This is a bit like how Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's kids have the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. The former is a cadet branch of the German House of Hesse, and the latter is a rebranding of the extremely German Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (and of course right there is a triple-barrel name, Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha.
- Fargren 2y ago
  Yeah. I had to get a second last name when I was granted Spanish citizenship, which leads to my full name not matching my Argentinian ID. This generates (small) problems when flying between Spain and Argentina. Also partially due to my full now being too long to print on a boarding pass.
  - KPGv2 2y ago
    I love paperwork, so I always handle passport applications and stuff for us, and whenever I have to fill out my wife's stuff, there's that part about other last names, and I get super paranoid trying to remember which ones she's officially used (she doesn't even remember, or even have records sometimes due to the nature of immigrating), because between Latin America and the US pre- and post-citizenship plus getting married, it's kind of a nightmare to remember when there was a de something, an y something, or just one surname, or two surnames. And then her parents are from another country with different surname rules, throwing a crazy wrench in things when she has to deal with her other citizenship documents, which adhere to that other country's rules.
bee_rider 2y ago
I wonder if we can invent a new convention, of compacting last names. So, if John Richards and Mary Jones have a child, they can give it the last name… Jords. Or Richnes. It only really needs to go out for four or so generations anyway, at which point the folks who have a really strong attachment to the name will be dead. Plus the middle names provides a slot to put your family tree’s most famous name anyway.
- javawizard 2y ago
  This reminds me of Zach Weinersmith[0], of SMBC fame. He was originally Zach Weiner, and he married Kelly Smith[1] and they concatenated both their names together and adopted that as their last name. There's something I love about that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Weinersmith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Weinersmith [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Weinersmith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Weinersmith
  - bjt 2y ago
    Former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa did the same. (He was born Villar. Wife was born Raigosa.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Villaraigosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Villaraigosa
    - wink 2y ago
      Depends on the jurisdiction, for example Germany is pretty strict. If A marries B, then either both keep their names, both will be A or both will be B or one or both will be A-B or B-A. No other outcomes are possible, and if one of them was B-C before then the kids can't be A-B-C.
- mikepurvis 2y ago
  I know some couples who have gone this route— both taking on a different name at marriage, either a combination of their names or a new one invented from whole cloth. It's definitely a workable option in terms of equalizing the "loss of identity" piece and ensuring that both parties are as all-in on the newly-created family unit. That said, it does also feel a bit more chaotic and potentially subject to widespread adoption of surnames that are trendy in popular culture.
nilstycho 2y ago
I like the idea of union names [1]. If you're AC and your partner is BD, then on marriage you choose a new name X. You become AXC and your partner BXD. Your child is EX. Then each child has equal connection to both parents. The cost is that you lose the deep history of names, but that history only existed for a single lineage anyway, so it's not as important as it seemed. (1) https://nothingismere.com/2013/11/12/solve-surnames-with-union-names/ https://nothingismere.com/2013/11/12/solve-surnames-with-uni...
b112 2y ago
Women taking men's names has another side to it. When you think of it, women live forever, men die. 4B or whatever years ago, life arose. The cells which divided then, are the same cells as now. Women come from an egg, which divided over and over, cells specializing, including dividing and specializing as her eggs/ova which she is born with. The end result is that those cells are a continuous line, billions of years old. Men contribute sperm, genetic material, but no living cell. In a sense, women are immortal. Men die. So, maybe the name change is to honour those soon dead? (Yes, I know, weird take on it. It's Monday, I'm allowed.)
- jraph 2y ago
  I don't think there's such a difference between the two kinds of gametes. Things are quite symmetrical. - Sperm is as alive as ova: not alive. What is alive is the combination of the two, after some development. - Both gametes contribute genetic material the same way. - Their respective lines are as continuous. > So, maybe the name change is to honour those soon dead? Of course, the name change has sociological / political reasons. It cannot have such biological roots since the policies around names were there way before we discovered this stuff. I'm afraid the reasons why we keep the male name in many places are simpler and way less poetic.
  - b112 2y ago
    I don't think there's such a difference between the two kinds of gametes One's a full cell with mitochondria, cell wall, and so on. The other just delivers genetic information. There's no symmetry. For example, all your mitochondria and its dna come from the female line. None from the male.
    - jraph 2y ago
      Yes, of course, there is a asymmetry. The shape and the material, of course. Another example is that while sperm is constantly produced, ova are all there since birth. But this part: > The cells which divided then, are the same cells as now Seems quite wrong. Ova of one woman obviously contains part her DNA, not her mother's unchanged. Now, I didn't know about the mitochondria part, interesting, thanks for teaching me!
fy20 2y ago
Lithuania has interesting rules about the surname, as it is gendered, and the suffix changes when the woman is married. Typically the father's surname is used, and the suffix is changed to match the rules. For sons it's easy, as the surname doesn't change, it just ends in a masculine ending. Most commonly -as, but less common are -is, -ys or -ius. For daughters, the masculine ending is replaced with a feminine ending such as -aitė, -ytė, -utė, or -ūtė. I'm not aware of cases where the father and son have different endings, but technically you could. However where it gets interesting is marriage. Typically married women take the husband's surname, but they change the ending to -ienė to indicate they are married. So a family with a daughter would result in everyone having a different surname, for example: Father: Tomas Žukauskas Mother: Eglė Žukauskienė Daughter: Gabija Žukauskaitė Divorced women typically take their father's surname, but use the married -ienė ending as it appears more sophisticated. Well known people may keep their father's surname even when married, but change the ending. Gendered suffixes are used for first names too (typically Lithuanian's only have two names), but they don't change for married/unmarried. For example Paulius for a man and Paulina for a woman. Lithuanian's love diminutives though, so a parent may refer to their children as Pauliukas (the son) or Paulytė (the daughter). And to make things even more fun, the suffix of names changes depending on gramative case. In the media foreign names are usually converted to their Lithuanian counterpart, for example Donaldas Trumpas.
- skirmish 2y ago
  > I'm not aware of cases where the father and son have different endings, but technically you could I am Lithuanian, and I never heard of that happen. This [1] also concurs: "Sons inherit their father's surname, with no changes." [1] https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lithuania_Naming_Customs https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lithuania_Naming_Custom...
hilux 2y ago
> in Norway it's quite common to take both parents' names now. What's going on in the name "Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen"?
- Tor3 2y ago
  That seems to be "Sven" - first name, "Magnus" - middle name, "Øen Carlsen", a combination of two last names, "Øen" from his mother and "Carlsen" from his father.
Toutouxc 2y ago
Adding to the list of weird traditions, I believe in Hungary the traditional way (nowadays not so popular?) was for the married woman to give up her ENTIRE identity (name AND surname), and just adopt the husband's full name with some suffix. Now that's insane.

adrian_b 2y ago

If everyone had two family names, one from mother and one from father, then the two names of child would be chosen one from the two names of the mother and one from the two names of the father. The choice could be random or by preference. This would match the way how chromosomes are passed from the parents. Neglecting the crossover (whose effect is only that the sequence pairs between which a random choice is made are smaller than the chromosomes), for each pair of chromosomes one is taken from the mother and one from the father. The choice of which of the two chromosomes of the mother and of which of the two chromosomes of the mother are taken, is random. I believe that this would be a better system for naming people. A random choice of which family name to take from each parent might be preferable, to avoid the reduction in number of the possible family names, if some would be preferred much more often than others.

jhrmnn 2y ago
And so we could follow the sex chromosome and mitochondrial DNA convention—you’d inherit the grandma’s surname from your mother and the grandpa’s surname from your father.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  This is indeed a possible variant of the system. This variant could lead to a split of the set of existing family names into two disjoint subsets, one that is passed through females and one that is passed through males. I do not think that this split could create problems, unless at the date when the system would be introduced there would happen to be a serious imbalance between the number of family names carried by females and the number of family names carried by males, which might be then preserved by the system.
hammock 2y ago
Interesting thought , tying to chromosomal inheritance. Since one of the chief uses of surnames historically was to track family (financial) inheritance
tadfisher 2y ago
Are we considering mitochondrial DNA? Because that is always passed down from the mother's line, so maybe we should always use the mother's maiden name as the "last" name to preserve this trait.
abecedarius 2y ago
There was a 70s science fiction future where customarily both parents adopted a new last name when they married. Seemed the obvious sensible policy for women's lib without a 2^N name-length scaling with the generations. I only know one person who's done that. In some ways there's been less future shock than we expected.
- kelnos 2y ago
  I know a couple who combined half each of their original surnames to create a new surname. I thought it was a cool idea, but of course won't work for everyone's names. Their "invented" name turned out to be a fairly reasonable surname that is probably in not-uncommon use in general, so that worked well for them. I feel like that could kinda work for my wife's name and my name, but the possible new combinations still sound a little off to me. (We both kept our original surnames.)
  - abecedarius 2y ago
    Reminds me of the O’Whielacronxes! Though I'd be surprised if that was ever their legal name.
  - pempem 2y ago
    Villaraigosa did this - the former mayor of LA. He got divorced and kept the name, so hard to say what happens down the line there. I tried supremely hard to merge my partner's last name and my own but each iteration sounded multiples worse than our own last names. We've kept our original surnames and given our kiddo a hyphenated one.
- heyjamesknight 2y ago
  My wife and I did this. Seemed like an elegant solution to the problem.
- aegis4244 2y ago
  My partner and I did exactly that. She let me choose. Ended up with the surname from one of my favorite literary characters. Changed my first name to match as well. Happened to be a childhood nick name anyway, so I've always answered to it.
PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
Alternatively, you can make the choice to have matrilineal, patrilineal or both lines. My first wife and I hyphenated our names after we committed to naming any son we had with my last name and any daughter with hers. We only had 1 child (a daughter) before we divorced, but that daughter carries her mother's family name only, not mine.
tempestn 2y ago
You could also pass the father's name to boys and the mother's name to girls. Or all children get the same combined name based on the father's father's name and the mother's mother's name. So both matrilineal and patrilineal lines would be propagated.
gpvos 2y ago
I've always thought, in a single-surname system, it would be most fair to give girls their mother's surname and boys their father's (throw a dice for intersex children).
pinoceros 2y ago
Courtney Taylor-Taylor, American songwriter and musician, hyphenated both of his parents' (married) last names as a joke on this.

tadfisher 2y ago

We did this for our children as a US couple, and didn't even make the connection to Scandanavian practices (my wife's heritage, coincidentally). We likened it to the Spanish practice of having two surnames, without the confusion of having four names (due to Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names [0]). [0] "People have exactly N names, for any value of N." --https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

KPGv2 2y ago

> But what happens next generation? When a partner named ABC with two surnames should be combined with my name Look to Hispanic countries. They've been dealing with this for a very long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs Generally, if a parent has two surnames, the child will take the first of them, so you normally will have two surnames, the first or only from your father, and the first or only from your mother. (Note that this algorithm does eliminate matrilineal names, because a child will effectively be receiving their two surnames from their grandfathers. From what I understand, if the genetic lineage is particularly elite, you might keep more. My wife grew up in Latin America among the Hispanic elite, and apparently some of her friends had more than two surnames because their bloodlines were extremely blue and they wanted to preserve reference to the lineage. This is a bit like how Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's kids have the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. The former is a cadet branch of the German House of Hesse, and the latter is a rebranding of the extremely German Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (and of course right there is a triple-barrel name, Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha.

Fargren 2y ago
Yeah. I had to get a second last name when I was granted Spanish citizenship, which leads to my full name not matching my Argentinian ID. This generates (small) problems when flying between Spain and Argentina. Also partially due to my full now being too long to print on a boarding pass.
- KPGv2 2y ago
  I love paperwork, so I always handle passport applications and stuff for us, and whenever I have to fill out my wife's stuff, there's that part about other last names, and I get super paranoid trying to remember which ones she's officially used (she doesn't even remember, or even have records sometimes due to the nature of immigrating), because between Latin America and the US pre- and post-citizenship plus getting married, it's kind of a nightmare to remember when there was a de something, an y something, or just one surname, or two surnames. And then her parents are from another country with different surname rules, throwing a crazy wrench in things when she has to deal with her other citizenship documents, which adhere to that other country's rules.

bee_rider 2y ago

I wonder if we can invent a new convention, of compacting last names. So, if John Richards and Mary Jones have a child, they can give it the last name… Jords. Or Richnes. It only really needs to go out for four or so generations anyway, at which point the folks who have a really strong attachment to the name will be dead. Plus the middle names provides a slot to put your family tree’s most famous name anyway.

javawizard 2y ago
This reminds me of Zach Weinersmith[0], of SMBC fame. He was originally Zach Weiner, and he married Kelly Smith[1] and they concatenated both their names together and adopted that as their last name. There's something I love about that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Weinersmith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Weinersmith [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Weinersmith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Weinersmith
- bjt 2y ago
  Former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa did the same. (He was born Villar. Wife was born Raigosa.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Villaraigosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Villaraigosa
  - wink 2y ago
    Depends on the jurisdiction, for example Germany is pretty strict. If A marries B, then either both keep their names, both will be A or both will be B or one or both will be A-B or B-A. No other outcomes are possible, and if one of them was B-C before then the kids can't be A-B-C.
mikepurvis 2y ago
I know some couples who have gone this route— both taking on a different name at marriage, either a combination of their names or a new one invented from whole cloth. It's definitely a workable option in terms of equalizing the "loss of identity" piece and ensuring that both parties are as all-in on the newly-created family unit. That said, it does also feel a bit more chaotic and potentially subject to widespread adoption of surnames that are trendy in popular culture.

nilstycho 2y ago

I like the idea of union names [1]. If you're AC and your partner is BD, then on marriage you choose a new name X. You become AXC and your partner BXD. Your child is EX. Then each child has equal connection to both parents. The cost is that you lose the deep history of names, but that history only existed for a single lineage anyway, so it's not as important as it seemed. (1) https://nothingismere.com/2013/11/12/solve-surnames-with-union-names/ https://nothingismere.com/2013/11/12/solve-surnames-with-uni...

b112 2y ago

Women taking men's names has another side to it. When you think of it, women live forever, men die. 4B or whatever years ago, life arose. The cells which divided then, are the same cells as now. Women come from an egg, which divided over and over, cells specializing, including dividing and specializing as her eggs/ova which she is born with. The end result is that those cells are a continuous line, billions of years old. Men contribute sperm, genetic material, but no living cell. In a sense, women are immortal. Men die. So, maybe the name change is to honour those soon dead? (Yes, I know, weird take on it. It's Monday, I'm allowed.)

jraph 2y ago
I don't think there's such a difference between the two kinds of gametes. Things are quite symmetrical. - Sperm is as alive as ova: not alive. What is alive is the combination of the two, after some development. - Both gametes contribute genetic material the same way. - Their respective lines are as continuous. > So, maybe the name change is to honour those soon dead? Of course, the name change has sociological / political reasons. It cannot have such biological roots since the policies around names were there way before we discovered this stuff. I'm afraid the reasons why we keep the male name in many places are simpler and way less poetic.
- b112 2y ago
  I don't think there's such a difference between the two kinds of gametes One's a full cell with mitochondria, cell wall, and so on. The other just delivers genetic information. There's no symmetry. For example, all your mitochondria and its dna come from the female line. None from the male.
  - jraph 2y ago
    Yes, of course, there is a asymmetry. The shape and the material, of course. Another example is that while sperm is constantly produced, ova are all there since birth. But this part: > The cells which divided then, are the same cells as now Seems quite wrong. Ova of one woman obviously contains part her DNA, not her mother's unchanged. Now, I didn't know about the mitochondria part, interesting, thanks for teaching me!

fy20 2y ago

Lithuania has interesting rules about the surname, as it is gendered, and the suffix changes when the woman is married. Typically the father's surname is used, and the suffix is changed to match the rules. For sons it's easy, as the surname doesn't change, it just ends in a masculine ending. Most commonly -as, but less common are -is, -ys or -ius. For daughters, the masculine ending is replaced with a feminine ending such as -aitė, -ytė, -utė, or -ūtė. I'm not aware of cases where the father and son have different endings, but technically you could. However where it gets interesting is marriage. Typically married women take the husband's surname, but they change the ending to -ienė to indicate they are married. So a family with a daughter would result in everyone having a different surname, for example: Father: Tomas Žukauskas Mother: Eglė Žukauskienė Daughter: Gabija Žukauskaitė Divorced women typically take their father's surname, but use the married -ienė ending as it appears more sophisticated. Well known people may keep their father's surname even when married, but change the ending. Gendered suffixes are used for first names too (typically Lithuanian's only have two names), but they don't change for married/unmarried. For example Paulius for a man and Paulina for a woman. Lithuanian's love diminutives though, so a parent may refer to their children as Pauliukas (the son) or Paulytė (the daughter). And to make things even more fun, the suffix of names changes depending on gramative case. In the media foreign names are usually converted to their Lithuanian counterpart, for example Donaldas Trumpas.

skirmish 2y ago
> I'm not aware of cases where the father and son have different endings, but technically you could I am Lithuanian, and I never heard of that happen. This [1] also concurs: "Sons inherit their father's surname, with no changes." [1] https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lithuania_Naming_Customs https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lithuania_Naming_Custom...

hilux 2y ago

> in Norway it's quite common to take both parents' names now. What's going on in the name "Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen"?

Tor3 2y ago
That seems to be "Sven" - first name, "Magnus" - middle name, "Øen Carlsen", a combination of two last names, "Øen" from his mother and "Carlsen" from his father.

Toutouxc 2y ago

Adding to the list of weird traditions, I believe in Hungary the traditional way (nowadays not so popular?) was for the married woman to give up her ENTIRE identity (name AND surname), and just adopt the husband's full name with some suffix. Now that's insane.