What happens when two people who already have their parents' hyphenated names get married and want to combine names?

I like the idea of hyphenated or two last names in general, but I'd have to marry someone with a last name somewhere around three letters in order to make a name hyphenated with mine not be ridiculously long.

What happens when two people who already have their parents' hyphenated names get married and want to combine names?

See what I'm sayin'?

That's why ours works, Hil. My name is one syllable. It combines well.

not enough nick names was one of the reasons I didn't like my name. Brian... Bri... that's it. My brother had a TON. Richard. Richie. Rich. Dick. Ricardo. Helen. (that was his nick name in HS... more because of our last name, and there was 2 other Richards in his class).

Cancer-beating~ma to Karen, and to Suzi's assistant.

Ma~ma to Hil.

Congrats to meara on her new job and city.

I didn't drop my middle name, I'm still legally FirstName MiddleName Last-LastName, but I don't include it in my signature.

Shoot, I don't include all the letters in my signature - there's a first initial, a hump of a last initial, a wacky loop that stands in for four letters in the middle, and I don't even bother with the last letter any more. There's just not enough room on credit card slips, ya know?

I've always thought it would be nifty to create a society in which couples would take the same name, which would be a combination of their respective family names, thus creating a new family name. It would be totally up to the couple themselves to decide which letters from each name, whether to go with a portmanteau or anagram, or whatever.

What happens when two people who already have their parents' hyphenated names get married and want to combine names?

That's their problem. I'm likely to give my kids a big butt and too many last names. We all have our burdens...

That's their problem. I'm likely to give my kids a big butt and too many last names. We all have our burdens...

Hee. Baby-St John-Smythe-McGonagall got back.

I didn't change my name when we got married. Though it's not like we had real get-married desires or anything. If we ever had kids it might get a bit ungainly, I suppose, but I still don't think I'd ever change my name. I already get mail with Mrs. MyRealName because I tell people I've kept my maiden name, but they put the Mrs. in anyway, which really irritates me.

Glad to hear Karen's news, David! Much continued -ma to her & to Suzi's assistant!

My SiL, who is a 2nd grade teacher, says she never hears kids teasing each other about odd names anymore. Like, that's no longer a thing kids do.

That's nice to know! I've got no perspective on this anymore; in my present class along with fairly unremarkable names like 'Jean' and ''Lachlan' and 'Kaowton' I have a 'Prim', a 'Non', an 'Awe' and a 'Chin'.

Thais. Gotta love 'em.

fwiw, I always think of Meara as Meara, and Shrift as Shrift.

I have no strong feelings about my own name - I don't love it, but I don't loathe it. I sort of wish I'd formally adopted Fay (which is my second name) when I went to Uni, as a couple of friends of mine did, because I actively like Fay. Nichola, on the other hand, is more of a '...yeah, whatever' name. There were 8 Nicolas (or Nicholas, or Nicollas) in my class of 32 girls when I was 11, and I think that says all that needs to be said, really. As a nick-name, I'm perfectly well-disposed to Nic, but really really really hate Nicky. It is Not. My. Name. At. All. When people who do not know me presume to call me by the diminutive, I have to come out and make it clear that it's not my name, even though this invariably comes across as rude, because otherwise I'll be wanting to knife them. (My little sister got a free pass on this when she was wee, but she grew out of it once she realised that I was tolerating it rather than embracing it, and that anyone who actually knew me wouldn't call me by that name.)

I quite like this notion of both changing your names upon marriage.

Random Student Anecdote:

during playtime, while kids are supposed to be outside and I am inside on the computer, as is my TA

SmallGirlCalledCindy: (opening the door and wandering in) ...Miss Fay, I...

Me: Go away! Shoo! I'm not here! I'm invisible!

SGCC (not missing a beat, turning to the TA): Khun Bun, where's Miss Fay?

I do like her. She's a bit of a nutter, and not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to the maths or the written work, but she's a character - and that particular response won her a metric shitload of brownie points, imho.