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Comment by jackvalentine | Hacker News Reader

My mother never changed her last name when she married in the 70s. My wife and I decided to hyphenate. Obviously if we have kids that’ll be a problem for them to solve but we both agree that whatever they do it’s their call.

Our family is something that we created and exists in this time. One day it won’t exist and our name might not either.

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Hyphenate surname couples seem to universally not worry about the dilemma that they invariably put their offspring in regarding their options for last name arrangements. What the hell do your kids do, especially considering that high odds that they will end up marrying other people who also carry the burden of a hyphenate surname? Easiest option is to just pass the buck and compound matters for the next generation; "Jones-Bass-Richards-Berg", "Smith-Stein-Lee-O'mally". Americans with hyphenate surnames will soon overtake Indian surnames as the longest in terms of sheer letter count.

Yeah, that's what bothers me about it. It's not a stable solution. While taking the father's surname is sexist, at least it actually works. Hyphenation doesn't over multiple generations, at least not without more rules about what last name kids inherit. Expecting the kids to choose a last name when they're 'of age'... that'll cause all sorts of issues for them. It's selfishness on the parents' part.

Giving them the mom's last name may also be sexist, but that's still more practical than hyphenation. (Actually I don't think either is particularly sexist, it's just that it's far more practical to pick one of the parent's surnames for the whole family, and so one of the parents is going to get privileged to some degree.)

I think a good system would be if names followed mitochondrial and Y-chromosome lineages. So each child gets a hyphenated surname based on their father's patrinomen and their mother's matrinomen, but boys only pass on their father's patrinomen to their offspring, and girls only pass on their mother's matrinomen. It would ensure everyone only requires a single hyphenation, while having a clear system for tracking descent.

Eg, if my father's surname is Rice-Burroughs (where Rice is his patrinomen and Burroughs is his matrinomen) and my mother's surname is Baron-Cohen, then my surname would be Rice-Cohen, because my father has the "Rice" Y-chromosome (and if I'm a male, I have it too), and I have the "Cohen" mitochondria. If I am male and I marry someone with the surname of Bonham-Carter, our children would get the surname of Rice-Carter, since I can't pass on the Cohen mitochondria. If I were a female and married a male Bonham-Carter, our children would be Bonham-Cohen.

Why does it have to be a stable solution?

It’s funny that you say that taking the father’s surname ‘works’ because my wife’s portion of the name is not the one she was given at birth by her father who to be charitable, was absent. She had to wait until her 18th birthday to free herself from that.

I think once you realise that names don’t really matter you free yourself from a lot of assumptions.

Yeah I guess we have a high tolerance for the impractical. Maybe by creating this dilemma we’ll manage to kill off the idea of changing your name for the next generation - who knows?

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