How would it be if we all had double surnames, one from our paternal line and one from our maternal line. Sort of like the Spanish do, but modified slightly so the maternal surname really is a surname that passes along the maternal line and not just the mother’s paternal surname.
That’s the idea thrown out by Burgerkrieg.
- TheBurgerkrieg, “A ‘New’ (Sur)naming System“, YouTube <youtube.com> (Aug. 2, 2019).
I tried it for about six weeks. I thought it might mitigate the perpetual confusion about my name change from Howery to Swanström. I don’t know whether it helped or not. Mostly it just drove me crazy because I’m a minimalist at heart. In my world even middle initials seem pretentious, an affectation of the petit bourgeoisie.
I do like, though, a particular “system” I see among some of my European cousins, where the last name comes from one parent and the middle name from the other. No long strings of given names there, so nicely minimalist.
More Information
- Sharon M. G. Lebell, Naming Ourselves, Naming Our Children: Resolving the Last Name Dilemma (1988).
- Stephen Wilson, Means of Naming: A Social History (1998).