Talk:Double-barrelled name

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[edit] The Article Title

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)

No, it's not slang, and not all double barrelled names are hyphenated (see article). Don't move. Zeimusu 14:20, 2004 Sep 4 (UTC)
(Why shouldn't i move? Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see that you've creeped me out? [wink])
--Jerzy•t 16:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I saw this article's title two years ago, and immediately understood it, as did my usage expert just now. But neither of us remembers seeing it before, and i (an inveterate terminology collector and in particular a naming-convention buff) i have definitely not seen it elsewhere since became aware of it.
It has the virtue of being easily understood at least by Yanks, but the problem of being not widely known, and being a metaphor drawn from the lore of an unrelated field that is not necessarily well-understood outside the gun-crazy USA.
IMO we need verification that this is "not slang".
--Jerzy•t 16:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Interestingly, my dictionary (Readers' Digest Universal - not the OED but reliable enough as a first guide) describes the application of "double-barrelled" to surnames as a British usage, so you may be on the wrong track assuming it to be a US thing. More to the point, the question of how easily understood this term is only really arises if there is a reasonable alternative. I have never heard any other term that would cover double-barrelled surnames except for "hyphenated", which is just wrong, as explained above. Mattley (Chattley) 17:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I finally did a search instead of just chattering, hoping to find out what genealogists call them. While IMO it still leaves the slang question in doubt, What's in a Name? : HULLAND says that
  1. The usage goes back at least to 1848 (at least with contemptuous intent).
  2. The practice only to about 1700.
  3. Curiously, double-barrelled firearms were so called starting about that time.
  4. It originated when potential heirs fulfilled the provision of wills whose creators intended to perpetuate their respective surnames, even if their male line of descent died out.
No indication though of what they were called in print before 1848, nor how old the author's term "doubled forms" is. I think all of this is ground the article should cover; it's a pretty casual source to be cited alone as verification, but justifies a search for other sources. (And BTW, i guess it stands proven that the double-barreled shotgun is well known to the gun-crazy British upper class, which i should have anticipated since it's a hunting weapon. [blush])
--Jerzy•t 02:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Associated circumstances

[edit] Particularly associated?

They are particularly associated with English-speaking countries.

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)

[edit] Feminism?

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)

No, madam, I do not think that it would be, but it should not be overly emphasised. --Anglius 03:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] In French

Apparently arbritrary double-barelled 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-barelled names that were already in use. ! Morwen - Talk 11:35, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sir, (as for the aristocratic surnames) if both of the original surnames that one of them is comprised of begin with de, does the double-barrelled surname have both them(e.g. de Gaulle-de Noialles)? --Anglius 03:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Notables

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

Well not really as for Winston's branch of the family (starting with his father) the given surname was just "Churchill". "Spencer Churchill" has appeared on some books but this was mainly Winston the Brit wishing to distinguish himself from "Winston Churchill the American". Really the person should be widely known by the double-barrelled name to be mentioned.
And was "Bonar Law" a double barrelled surname or not? His son, a middle ranking politician in later decades, appears to have always been called "Richard Law". Timrollpickering 15:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In Holland

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 have the impression the answer is yes, but i am unsure whether i am just thinking of Per Brinch Hansen (a Dane whom i had confused in my mind with the Dutchman Edsgar Dijkstra), or whether i had noticed a real Dutch example, which i put together with PBH making (supposedly) two Dutch examples.
--Jerzy•t 14:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
When this query bears fruit, don't say "Holland", which is a region of the Netherlands.
--Jerzy•t 16:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your explanation and advice, hr.--Anglius

[edit] Going to Extremes

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)

Holstein-Gottorp, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Lippe-Biesterfeld, etc, are properly territorial designations. The others are house names. As for surnames, I have only encountered up to triple-barrelled surnames, although there are names created for the sake of length. Charles 21:50, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I thank you, sir, but I added (and attempted to Dutchify) those house-names and designations together to bestow an example.--Anglius 00:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of the term

_ _ 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

  • the children have the first half of their father's d-b'd surname, followed by first half of their maternal grandfather's d-b'd surname, but
  • the husband's surname is not affected by marriage, and
  • (i assume) the wife either takes the husband's full surname or retains her own.

_ _ 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)

[edit] Sources and accuracy of data

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)!!?!? Image:Confused-tpvgames.gif

You need to read the WP bio, and if you don't trust your colleagues who wrote it, the second 'graph of one of its refs.
--Jerzy•t 02:07, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] North American vs. British Usage

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

Hmm. My own double-barrelled name is the reverse - it was created a generation after the two families came together (and isn't held by other branches of the family) and has the woman's (in this case the mother's) maiden name first. I'm not sure all modern double-barrelled names are created according to any strict style. Timrollpickering 12:48, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

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'm not sure about the nobility but I have known a number of people who have double-barrelled surnames combining their unmarried parents' surnames - presumably though this is a modern convention in a society where illegitimacy doesn't carry a stigma (and also the name doesn't automatically scream "illegitimate").
There are also cases where the woman's family name was added because otherwise the name would die out (my own is one). At a guess there may well be a significantly higher proportion originating in the immediate post war years/generation. Timrollpickering 01:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Well this is often sort of the reason in the nobility, when property is inherited through the female line, sometimes with the name change forced by someone's will (Henry Smith, 15th and last Baron Smith, leaves the estate of the Barons Smith to John Jones, 9th Baron Jones (his eldest daughter's husband), on condition that he takes his surname, and so the latter becomes John Smith-Jones, 9th Baron Jones). And I'd imagine now that there are a great number of reasons for taking double-barrelled surnames (including illegitimacy) — I was simply taking issue with the original editor's implication that this was a well-known and longstanding feature of "UK practice". Proteus (Talk) 10:39, 14 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, 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)