Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews From: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: Names, Marriage, and Offspring Message-ID: <3@ubc-cs.UUCP> Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 13:54:08 EDT Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.3 Posted: Mon Sep 16 13:54:08 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 16-Sep-85 19:42:21 EDT References: <310@decwrl.UUCP> Reply-To: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews) Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 25 Summary: In article <310@decwrl.UUCP> dyer@tau.DEC writes: >Hyphenization I see two main problems with hyphenization. The first is that >~~~~~~~~~~~~~ the number of names hyphenated increases exponentially with each >generation. Two people with hyphenated last names could, if all marry hyphen- >ated people and hyphenate *their* names, have grandchildren with sixteen names >hyphenated together. The other problem is deciding whose name comes first in >the new hyphenated name. To base it on sex would, of course, be sexist. This is a great article, and I especially like the "family name" scheme too. However, I have a suggestion referring to the "hyphenization" scheme: when Ms. A-B and Mr. C-D get married, their kids are named A-D. This makes the second part (D) the normal patrilinear name, and the first part (A) the corresponding matrilinear name. I don't think the order is really important; the patrilinear name might be taken as the "real last" name, but on the other hand the matrilinear one comes first in the name. We could initialize this scheme by all sticking onto the front of our name the name of the furthest back matrilinear-line ancestor we know. For instance, in my case my new name would be Robertson-Andrews, since my mother's mother's mother's name was Margaret Robertson, and I don't know her mother's name. However, this plays havoc with another idea I like, which is for people to take each other's middle name when they get married (as I believe John Lennon and Yoko Ono did). If each of those is hyphenated, it makes for pretty long names! --Jamie.