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Isn't the term double-barrelled name slang? Shouldn't this article be moved to hyphenated name? Michael Hardy 17:44, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Although I do find the word "barrelled" spelled as such outside of Wiki, I don't find it in Merriam-Webster's dictionary. According to Webster, the correct spelling is "barreled." Okietexan (talk) 18:20, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Is this true? They certainly aren't exclusive to English-speaking countries, but are they even particularly associated with English-speaking countries? What countries do not have double-barrelled names, for example? —Gabbe 10:40, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
I know many families who in recent years have adopted double-barrelled names from a concern with feminist issues. Would a paragraph on this usage be out of place? Philthecow 03:50, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
Picking up on Philthecow's suggestion from ten years ago, this now seems extremely common (at least here in the UK) and needs to be reflected. I now also know couples who splice their names in to one, making a new name, eg 'Woodley' from Woodward and Handley. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.107.174 (talk) 13:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Apparently arbritrary double-barrelled names have been legalised in France recently. The practice is to use a double-hyphen "--" , (not just a long hyphen!!), to distinguish from the historic double-barrelled names that were already in use. ! Morwen - Talk 11:35, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Article says: Notable persons with unhyphenated double-barrelled names include two former British Prime Ministers, David Lloyd George and Andrew Bonar Law, and the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill should be included! He is an agnatic Spencer, with Churchill added after a Spencer married the daughter of heirless Duke of Marlborough. --jamesdowallen at gmail
Gentlemen, other than the Dutch Royal Family's surname, are there Dutch double-barrelled surnames that are hyphenated?--Anglius 21:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate your explanation and advice, hr.--Anglius
Are there any extremely long surnames anywhere in the world (for instance, van Oranje-Nassau-Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov en Mecklenburg-Schwerin aan Lippe-Biesterfeild van Pruisen)?--Anglius 04:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Off the top of my head, Admiral Drax had 4 all hyphenated together. (Morcus (talk) 16:42, 30 December 2009 (UTC))
_ _ While i said "double-barrelled name" is immediately understandable (at least to me and some others), the article's examples do not cover the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking convention that is part of the natural understanding of the term. I describe this convention as a single-generation-long version, where in every generation
_ _ I also doubt the distinction is adequately made between these forms and the other forms of what i call (in LoPbN hdgs) a compound surname: multi-word surnames where some words (usually all but one) are prepositions, articles, or a few other modifying words including St. or Saint (in English) (and perhaps Mt., Mount, or Mont, as Montcalm, Mountbatten, and Montjoy hint at).
--Jerzy•t 16:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, the page is already flagged not citing sources, and that truth is rife. But I'm here to comment on a few instaces where I'm certain the infrmation is wrong. Sasha Baron Cohen isn't a Double Barrelled name, as far as I'm aware. I'm of the understanding his middle name is Baron, and I can't be certain, but i believe others included where it states "non-hyphenated names" are also middle names or pseudonyms, in which case, a pseudonym is either and alias or a language differentiated name. If the title is simply different due to a language barrier, then it may well be considered double barrel (unless, of course, it's an Eastern name, in hich case the matter may vary). The context does howwever differ if the name is a fictitious alias or a "user elected" alias, whereby a name was added as a result of simple personal prefererence. In these cases, the person may still be considered double barrelled, however it is to that person's own discretion and not to the discretion of people deliberating on the Internet.
In short, I think Cohen should be removed along with anyone else whose names are not accurately described as being "Double Barrelled".
--lincalinca 12:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)!!?!?
Would it be safe to state that there is a difference in the composition of double-barreled names? The Spencer Churchill usage mentioned here was quite accurate: Anne Churchill married a member of the Spencer family & so the line of Dukes of Marlborough could continue (reasonably) unbroken. The UK practice (and perhaps also among some older American families where the wife's heritage was thought "superior") is to have the mother's surname after the hyphen, both as a deference to superior family connections on the mother's side and to delineate "natural" children (not born within a marriage). In North America the application is most often an extension of the older social convention of listing a woman's surnames in the order in which she has taken them on (maiden, 1st married, 2nd married.) Hence, the oft-quoted mouthful of monikers of one Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton (Burton again in more humourous references) Warner Fortensky. Moreover, some more formal etiquette books (Emily Post is one, I believe) dictate that a woman's maiden name supplant her middle name in such uses as monograms or signatures in which she would provide initials. In Canada, while the American practice is more familiar to the general public, in certain more formal settings such as religious services the British practice is often followed.
142.167.235.4 06:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)Kelly
The "female-line name second" method (the "Spencer-Churchill system", I suppose) is very much the exception rather than the rule. Most double-barrelled surnames (at least in my experience) are the other way around. Sticking purely to the nobility (which is where the most examples can be found), the Gordon Lennoxes are patrilineally Lennoxes, the Montagu-Douglas-Scotts are Scotts, the Innes-Kers are Kers, the (Sutherland-)Leveson-Gowers are Gowers, the Child Villierses are Villierses, the Fiennes-Clintons are Clintons, the Chetwynd-Talbots are Talbots, the FitzAlan-Howards are Howards (and the Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenvilles were Grenvilles). (There are some counter-examples (the Mountbatten-Windsors being Mountbattens is the obvious example), but there tends to be a good reason for them, and the default placement tends to be the other way around.) In non-noble families, the reason can sometimes be a woman with a posh-sounding surname marrying a man with a very ordinary surname and not particularly wanting to sound ordinary, and so the couple adding the two together, almost always with hers first (hence the abundance of Something-Smiths and Something-Joneses (but hardly any Smith-Somethings (pace Lord Derby) or Jones-Somethings)). I've never heard of any connection between double-barrelled surnames and illegitimate children (and one can hardly imagine that the nobility would be so keen on them were that the case). And the American maiden-name-prefix custom doesn't create double-barrelled surnames, it creates different forenames (Jane Mary Smith becomes Jane Smith Jones, but her surname changes to "Jones", not "Smith Jones", with "Smith" simply replacing "Mary" as her second name — she'd now be called now "Mrs Jones", not "Mrs Smith Jones"), and so isn't comparable. Double-barrelled surnames, on the contrary, seem to be almost unheard of in the US (which is presumably one of the reasons the stereotypical Englishman (probably called Rupert or Jeremy) always seems to have one in American fiction). Proteus (Talk) 23:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I certainly stand corrected on this issue, then (sorry this is rather late in responding.) It would seem, then, that the UK practice is as confusing as the North American practice. By the way, it _is_ growing more common in North America to create a double-barrelled surname for a child, whether as an acknowledgment of both parents in a child born out of wedlock (to hedge between the old practice of giving such children their mother's surname and the more recent practice of acknowledging paternity by giving the child his or her father's name,) as a symbol of equality between marriage or life-partners, as a feminist gesture against a traditionally patriarchal naming convention, or as protection against the extinction of a family name in the absence of sons. kelly 24.138.55.16 10:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I know this all stopped along time ago but I was under the impression that standard British Practice for non titular names was (as is with my own name) Mother's first, especially if ones mother is of a higher station than ones father, though I could be wrong. With titular names they should be in order of importance from the perspective of the owner, thus the house in which you hold highest rank should be first or last. (Morcus (talk) 16:47, 30 December 2009 (UTC))
The written form section suggest that whether or not the hypen is written is a choice by either the owner or auther yet stricktly speaking the Hyphen or lack there of is set by legal documentation (Ie birth certificate or wedding certificate) and needs to reflect this, also It needs something on the use of Hyphens as a signal of being lower class than those without hyphen (and multiple surnames).(Morcus (talk) 19:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC))
I know this reply is very late but I shall adress some of the above, this only Applies to the UK as I've no knowledge of other systems. The Hyphen in my name is in every legal document in my name, and unless your name has been changed by Deedpole or marriage, the same name should appear on all your ID as it should all be confirmed by the same documentation. Unfortunatly you sometimes get problems where someone processing the documents makes a mistake which could result in a hyphen being where it shouldn't (Or in worse cases a name missed off), in such case you should send the document back and complain as it will technically be void, someone I used to work for was arrested at Heathrow returning from holiday because his name was different on his Passport and driving license (Which he says they only checked because his passport was hyphenated and his name wasn't on the system) because they thought he was an illegal. He was told later that his passport was null and void because it wasn't in his name.(Morcus (talk) 16:58, 30 December 2009 (UTC))
While it certainly is expressly forbidden in Quebec to change your name when you get married, is it really French Canadian custom? That is, was it customary before the law enforced it? (It's a fairly recent change in the law.) Or is that sentence merely meant to imply that people are honoring the spirit of the law by using their legal names rather than "married names" which have no legal standing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.206.92.211 (talk) 03:47, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
What we really need is such a list. This would be a very handy resource for people curious about whether David Lloyd George's surname was "Lloyd George" or simply "George", and loads of other examples. They would also discover things previously unsuspected. For example, if they always catalogued Gabriel García Márquez under M for "Márquez", they'd discover it needs to go under the Gs and not the Ms. Same for Federico Moreno Torroba, which good music dictionaries are finally starting to catalogue under "Morena Torroba" and not just "Torroba". And so on. It would be quite a long list, but not unmanageable. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
I've checked the article and I can't see anything about this, but forgive me if it's already covered here or elsewhere. Today I saw what appeared to be a double-barrelled name whose two parts had simply been run together without space or hyphen but retaining the original capitalisation (this was on the BBC's Magazine website: [1]); so you get a structure like 'Elias SmithJones'. (I didn't want to replicate the real name here.)
Now I appreciate this may have been a mistype of some sort, except that I do recall seeing this once before, some years ago. It certainly doesn't seem a common formation, but I wondered if anyone had any knowledge of how and when it's used? I thought it might be worth mentioning in this article if so. - Laterensis (talk) 13:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
This article concerns Hyphenated family names. I wondered if anyone knows anything about hyphenated given names. I had a (Dutch) friend called Jan-Willem. Is this common or just an anomaly? Rajawali 22:11, 01 June 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajawali (talk • contribs)
This article has been severely lacking in in references for a very long time, to the extent that much of it can be considered conjecture. An article of this kind especially needs accurate sourcing, without which it has little or no encyclopedic value. Unsourced material can be deleted; to do so would reduce the page to a stub.--Kudpung (talk) 18:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
The term double-barrelled still has a whiff of mockery about it, and it seems to me that the second word adds nothing to comprehension; furthermore, as someone backhandedly observed, it fails to convey that we're not talking about Jean-Claude. Why not double(d) surname, or, where context is unambiguous, double(d) name? —Tamfang (talk) 09:41, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
What was the common term in 1848 when apparently the joke was first recorded? —Tamfang (talk) 18:50, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
"Whiff" of mockery? Are you kidding? It's completely obvious mockery--and completely unencyclpedic. TheScotch (talk) 01:31, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't think that the reason for changing names is inequality among nobility. Rather it happens when a nobleman marries an heiress. examples: Hapsburg-Lorraine, Douglas-Hamilton, and Bowes-Lyon. A nobleman may also add a surname when he is the heir to another title. Sometimes it is a legal requirement for inheritance, especially in Scotland. Tinynanorobots (talk) 04:06, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I edited the section for Canada and especially Quebec to correct a few facts. First, I would put in the 70's rather than the 60's the beginning of the custom of double surnames. This is mostly out of personal observation. Also, I replaced "common" with "not rare", as the proportion of double surnames has never been higher than 22% according to this newspaper article: [2], and is in decline since the historic high of 1992. Cortomaltais (talk) 16:52, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Is there some reason other than communal sloth that the section Practices by country is not broken into subheads, and perhaps alphabetized? I note that in at least a couple of places editors have attempted to make the text flow, (e.g., "Doubling of surnames is also practiced by the Dutch,") but on the whole I think the number of different national entries (currently in eleven paragraphs) militates towards a more conventional scheme of listing. Can I find a smidgen of consensus before I get too bold and subsequently discover my effort is vaporized in a rash of reverts? --Eliyahu S Talk 17:31, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
"In some cases, children whose parents divorce have both surnames, by parents' choice or their own choice if they are of the required age."
I can see a few possibilities here:
Looking on the UK Deed Poll Service website, it would seem that 16 is the minimum age for 5, but either 1 or 2 could equally happen if the child is under 16. Of course, other jurisdictions might implement 3 or 4, or have a lower age limit below which 1 or 2 can be done, but above which any name change must be agreed between the person being renamed and that person's parents.
But "by parents' choice or their own choice if they are of the required age" gives the impression that some jurisdictions implement 1 and forbid 2 if the child is below a certain age. I can't believe this is the case. If a name change happens by method 2 then, while it was the parents who carried it out, it was the child's choice. — Smjg (talk) 18:14, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps 10-14 days ago, I wrote a stub article, Double surname, and then stumbled across this article with the same topic. I "forked", I guess it's called. So now I've added my new content to this article instead, and will void the other article. If I could choose, I'd choose to have my stub article's complete Talk page brought here somehow, but I don't want to know how to do that. Trying to help WP and especially our readers, For7thGen (talk) 22:25, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
(Discussion moved from Talk:Double surname)
Double-barrelled name already exists. While I strongly prefer the title Double surname, consensus (or at least inertia) is against me; so this ought to be a redirect, not a separate article (WP:Content forking). —Tamfang (talk) 20:38, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
The article title is "Double-barrelled name" not "Double-barrelled surname". Nonetheless, it focuses exclusively on double-barrelled surnames, making almost no mention of given names that are in this format. Anne-Marie, Jean-Paul and Sarah-Jane seem to be fairly common ones. I guess that to some extent people combine names as they like to form a double-barrelled name for their child. Is there anyone here who knows enough about this practice and its origins and motives to write about it? — Smjg (talk) 19:58, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
With regards to the section titled "Formation" of double barrelled surnames, it appears that Wiki has missed out the formation of a double barrelled surname through a married woman becoming a widow and then later in life remarrying. As in the case of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. This is by far the most usual case for double barrelling in recent generations but has now been superseded by those double barrelling their surname by any means they see fit. Detailed very well in the rest of the "Formation" section on Wiki.
As a double barrel myself acquired exactly as I've previously stated, my mother was widowed and remarried later in life. The use of the hyphen in this case appears to be optional, however in my case I do have a hyphen and have found that in 40 years this is most helpful for others understanding double barrelled surnames and denoting that the two names were from separate marriages. Michael Wilson-Roberts — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.24.169.167 (talk) 11:01, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
I assume it is a known phenomenon that in England and Wales some double-barrelled surnames are much more common than their inverses, for example: Lloyd-Wright appears much more common than Wright-Lloyd (whether hyphenated or not). Further, it appears to be more common that the first of these names is single-syllabic whereas the second is more frequently multi-syllabic, and for the first (at least) being surprisingly often of Welsh origin (Lloyd in the above example was originally Llwyd). The obvious explanations such as the wife’s surname becoming attached as the first of the names, or one name being more intrinsically common than the other, or one name being ‘posher’ than the other seem not to apply.
Staying with the example of Lloyd, I can think of numerous double-barrels: some illustrious such as Lloyd-Mostyn (both Welsh) and Lloyd-Baker (second is a trade name); some well-known such as Lloyd Wright; and some just ‘ordinary’ such as Lloyd-Hughes (both Welsh) and Lloyd-Jones (both Welsh). But Mostyn-Lloyd, Baker-Lloyd etc are very unusual.
DAK why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Actaeon (talk • contribs) 19:06, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
Yes, the unhyphenated double surname is more of a Welsh tradition. I have two surnames, the first of which is Lloyd (earlier in my ancestry is was Llwyd, as someone mentions above). On my birth certificate Lloyd is down as a middle name, I believe this was to prevent it being hyphenated as this is not the Welsh tradition, and was felt to be pretentious (by my parents, I make no such judgement!). In day to day use, it acts as an unhyphenated double barrelled name. As I understand it, this came in as the older patronymic system (where ap/ferch - 'son of/daughter of' was used in a longer chain of ancestral names) fell out of use, as a way of maintaining a connection with a particular family line, or place. Incidentally, Lloyd was my Mother's middle/family name, my other surname came from my father and my Mother's second surname was dropped. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.107.174 (talk) 12:33, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
What are the customs (if any) when one or both parents has a double-barrelled name? The simple thing would be to give the children the father's double-barrelled surname, but what if the wife doesn't want to? What are the alternatives to this? What about same-sex partners with children, where one or both parents have a double-barrelled name?
If anyone can source any customs, please add them to the article. Thanks, cagliost (talk) 11:37, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
When the context is "Anglo-Saxon", especially British, "double-barreled" is used to refer to the "pretentious" semi-aristocratic names. In fact the term "double-barreled" appears to have originated in the Victorian-era as a mildly sarcastic reference to the perceived snobbery of such names. But it seems that now "double-barreled" is used very freely of any double surname (German, Spanish, Danish). This may call for disambiguation, and the "British" section could be built into a separate treatment of the specifically British tradition of "snobbish" double surnames "such as Huntington-Whiteley and Taylor-Johnson" (the Taylor-Johnson example seems like an excellent example illustrating the snobbery of the hyphen itself, as it isn't immediately clear how hyphenating two commoners' names is supposed to make you look more aristocratic, and yet it apperently does). --dab (𒁳) 11:30, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
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When referring to a spouse of a barrel-named person who has taken the partner's name, what is the proper surname form? What should the wife of Sir Somebody Someone be named: Mrs Someone or Mrs Somebody Someone? Does it differ between the Somebody Someone family and the Somebody-Someone (hyphenated barrel) family? Does it change with titled persons (Lady Someone v Lady Somebody-Someone)? To avoid flames for being a chauvinist or depersonalising spouses of one gender or another, I am most interested in historical persons where the spouse's given name may be disputed or even unknown. Last1in (talk) 19:27, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved (non-admin closure) BegbertBiggs (talk) 13:15, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Double-barrelled name → Double surname – as in article lead fgnievinski (talk) 04:55, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
I've edited the paragraph that claims
Captain Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache is sometimes quoted — incorrectly — as the man with the most ever "barrels" in his surname (supposedly six; four of which are middle names).[citation needed]
to remove the "incorrectly" this claim has been added to the page previously with no citation for the "well actually".
[4] claims a citation for six barrels in surname in the 1997 Guinness Book of Records - I'll see if I can locate a copy to check.
Is there any notable source anywhere that states he only had 2 barrels in his surname. All I can find is wikipedia, reddit and blogs, probably getting their info from wikipedia. Newystats (talk) 05:16, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Please add a translation for the paragraph in Russian, to help understand it. I, and supposedly many others, cannot read and understand Russian.Redav (talk) 22:25, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
A common historic use of double barrelled names was for out of wedlock children. Usually the mother's name came first as she was looking after the child and the father who was of higher economic status was recognized with his last name. This often provided economic support to the child who was recognized by the local community as a responsibility of the father. This usage is common across the Caribbean and possibly the southern USA. My own great grandfather in England used a hyphenated last name to claim relationship with his father, who was a famous landscape painter. This connection with the arts came in useful when he started a photography studio. He eventually dropped his mother's name to make the connection stronger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Baker_(artist)
It should be noted that this usage is not in the main article. Is this due to embarrassment?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:1970:5164:3d00:900f:f11:2af7:529 (talk) 14:46, 17 February 2023 (UTC)