Further information:
Iberian naming customs,
Portuguese name,
Spanish naming customs, and
British tradition, a double surname is heritable, and mostly taken in order to preserve a family name which would have become extinct due to the absence of male descendants bearing the name, connected to the inheritance of a family estate. Examples include
Harding-Rolls and Stopford Sackville.
In Hispanic and Portuguese tradition, double surnames are the norm, and not an indication of social status. A person will take the (first) surname of their father, followed by the (first) surname of their mother (i.e. their maternal grandfather's surname). The double surname itself is not heritable. These names are combined without hyphen (but optionally combined using y "and"). In addition to this, there are heritable double surnames (apellidos compuestos) which are mostly but not always combined with a hyphen.
In German tradition, double surnames can be taken upon marriage, written with or without hyphen, combining the husband's surname with the wife's (more recently the sequence has become optional under some legislations). These double surnames are "alliance names" (Allianznamen) and as such not heritable.
Many double-barrelled names are written without a hyphen, which can cause confusion as to whether the surname is double-barrelled or not. Notable persons with unhyphenated double-barrelled names include prime minister David Lloyd George, the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Andrew Lloyd Webber, military historian Basil Liddell Hart, evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith, astronomer Robert Hanbury Brown, actresses Kristin Scott Thomas and Helena Bonham Carter (although she has said the hyphen is optional),[2] comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (however, his cousin, the clinical psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, opted for the hyphen) and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies.
A few British noble or gentry families have "triple-barrelled" surnames (e.g. Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe; Cave-Browne-Cave; Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound; Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby; Smith-Dorrien-Smith; Vane-Tempest-Stewart; George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers). These indicate prima facie the inheritance of multiple estates and thus the consolidation of great wealth. These are sometimes created when the legator has a double-barrelled name and the legatee has a single surname, or vice versa. Nowadays, such names are almost always abbreviated in everyday usage to a single or double-barrelled version. For example, actress Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe calls herself Isabella Calthorpe.
There are even a few "quadruple-barrelled" surnames (e.g. Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax and Stirling-Home-Drummond-Moray). The surname of the extinct family of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos was the quintuple-barrelled Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville.
Captain Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache is sometimes quoted as the man with the most ever "barrels" in his surname (six), but in fact all but the last two of these (Tollemache-Tollemache) were forenames.[citation needed]
Traditions in Iberian Peninsula
In Russia, double-barreled surnames are somewhat uncommon, but normal and accepted practice, often associated with some families of note wishing to
In Russia, double-barreled surnames are somewhat uncommon, but normal and accepted practice, often associated with some families of note wishing to preserve both of their lineages. Federal law #143-FZ "On Civil State Acts" explicitly allows double-barreled names in its Article 28, but limits such compound surnames to two parts only.[citation needed]
Turkish tradition
Since the late
Since the late 20th century, increasingly permissive legislation on the inheritance of surnames in Western countries has led to the emergence of non-traditional or ad hoc combined surnames.[clarification needed]
For example, Hispanic American politician Antonio Villar and his wife Corina Raigosa adopted the "blended" surname Villaraigosa upon their marriage in 1987.[7]
In Belgium and Germany, member states of the European Union, courts have refused to register children under the surname given according to a foreign naming tradition.[8]
In In Belgium and Germany, member states of the European Union, courts have refused to register children under the surname given according to a foreign naming tradition.[8]
In France a practice abolished in 2010[9] was to use two consecutive hyphens -- (not the same as a "long hyphen" or dash, or with a double hyphen) to distinguish between recently formed double surnames and ancient hyphenated family names (French: nom composé). The use of double surnames is legal but not customary. Children traditionally take on their father's surname (or, more recently, optionally their mother's).
In Canada, especially Quebec, it is common for children born since the 1970s to bear both parents' surnames, with no established rules as to whether the father's or mother's name should come first. (In Quebec, under the provisions of the Civil Code enacted in 1980,[10] both spouses must retain their original surnames upon marriage.) This situation was frequent enough that naming laws had to be amended in the early 1990s when those with double surnames began to marry, and wished themselves to give their children double surnames. In such cases, any combination involving at most two elements of the father's or the mother's surname is permitted.[11]
Finland liberalised their name law in 2017, allowing double surnames in some cases, either hyphenated or as such. A double name can be formed when marrying or getting children, combining the surnames of the spouses or the parents, respectively. Double names can be combined by taking one part of each. Either spouse or both can take a double name. Based on a family's foreign name tradition, children can get surnames also based on a grandparent's surname.[12] The former law, from 1985, allowed either taking their spouse's surname and optionally continuing using their own surname as a hyphen-joined prefix, but formally they did not get a double surname and their children got the spouse's surname.[13]
A Chinese compound surname is a Chinese surname using more than one character. Many of these surnames derive from noble and official titles, professions, place names and other areas, to serve for a purpose. Some are originally non-Han, while others were created by joining two one-character family names. Only a few of these names (e.g. Ouyang, Shangguan, Sima, Situ) survive in modern times. Many clans eventually took on a single-character surname for various reasons. A small minority of Koreans and Vietnamese also have compound surnames.
In 2007, PRC officials suggested that parents should be encouraged to create two-syllable (two-character) surnames for their children by combining their parents' (one-syllable) surnames; this could make people's names more unique, and "could help solve the problem of widely recurring names".[14]
In India, double surnames are comparatively common, especially in Bengal, examples including Roy Chaudhury (sometimes written as Chowdhury), Ghosh Dastidar, Das Gupta, Dutta Roy, etc.[India, double surnames are comparatively common, especially in Bengal, examples including Roy Chaudhury (sometimes written as Chowdhury), Ghosh Dastidar, Das Gupta, Dutta Roy, etc.[citation needed]. In recent years, a few notable married women have been keeping their maiden surnames resulting in a double-barred name such as Arati Ankalikar-Tikekar, Padmaja Phenany Joglekar.
In Nigeria, a double barrelled surname is adopted when an aristocratic woman marries a lower ranked man. It also occurs when a ruling family adopts the forename of their patriarch as part of their surname in order to distinguish themselves from others that might share their surname. An example of the former is that of the Vaughan-Richards family, a branch of the family of the Nigerian royal-turned-American emancipated slave Prince Scipio Vaughan, who maintain their mother's last name as well as their father's. An example of the latter is that of the royal family of King Adeniji Adele of Lagos, who are distinguished from their numerous Adele cousins by the use of the double barrelled name Adeniji-Adele.
The Filipino naming tradition is derived from the Hispanic system, but was influenced by the American (Anglo-Saxon) naming tradition when the Philippines became a United States colony in 1901.
A child customarily will carry the mother's maiden name as his middle name and carry the father's surname. When the female marries, she keeps her maiden surname and adds the husband's surname, but does not typically hyphenate it. So, when Maria Santos Aguon marries José Lujan Castro, her name becomes Maria Aguon Castro and their children will typically carry the middle name Aguon, and the surname Castro.[citation needed]
For Filipinos, the middle name is usually the maternal surname, which is the maiden surname of a person's mother. The use of the maternal surname as middle name is from American influence, where Filipinos adopted English naming customs, when they once used Spanish naming customs, that u
For Filipinos, the middle name is usually the maternal surname, which is the maiden surname of a person's mother. The use of the maternal surname as middle name is from American influence, where Filipinos adopted English naming customs, when they once used Spanish naming customs, that used two surnames (paternal and maternal) joined with the particle y (or e, before "i"), which remains in use but became restricted to very formal purposes, police records and legal proceedings. In the Spanish naming system, the middle name corresponds to the maternal surname. The middle name (or the maternal surname) is usually being abbreviated to a middle initial. Thus, a person with the full name Juan Santos Macaraig, with Santos the middle name in the present order, may become Juan S. Macaraig with the middle name abbreviated, and Juan Macaraig y Santos in the Spanish system, such as those used in names on police records, especially those seen on name placards held by a convicted person on official mug shots. The Philippine system, using "given name-middle name-surname" order (or "Christian name-mother's surname-father's surname") coincidentally follows the Portuguese naming system that uses two surnames, the first being maternal and the second being paternal.
But, the maternal surname may not be the middle name at some cases. It may be a second given name, like what the term really means, as in Jose P. Laurel, where "P." (a middle initial) corresponds to Paciano.
In illegitimate children, the middle name is the maiden surname of the father, and the middle name (maternal surname) of the mother as surname. But the surname becomes of the father's surname upon legal and administrative acknowledgement by his/her father. Children of a single father takes no middle name, even when the mother's identity is known.
To illustrate that, the daughter of an unmarried couple named Ana Cristina dela Cruz Manansala and Jose Maria Panganiban Lozada, named '"Maria Cristina'", will be named Maria Cristina Manansala dela Cruz (or Ma. Cristina M. dela Cruz), with Ana Cristina's middle name, dela Cruz, as surname. But once Jose Maria wants to acknowledge her as his child legally and administratively, Maria Cristina will take the surname Lozada, but keep the maternal surmame Manansala as middle name, thus, Maria Cristina Manansala Lozada (or Ma. Cristina M. Lozada). As the daughter of only Jose Maria, Maria Cristina will be rather called Maria Cristina Lozada or Ma. Cristina Lozada, even when the mother is known.
In married women, the middle name usually corresponds to the maiden surname, but on professional society, women usually add the husband's surname after their maiden name, keeping the maternal surname. A married woman may decline taking the husband's surname and keep her maiden name as no Philippine law compels women to take her husband's surname. Thus, a woman named Maria Concepcion Perez Limchauco (or Ma. Concepcion P. Limchauco), once marrying Juan Pablo Sanchez Marasigan (or Juan Pablo S. Marasigan) may take the name Maria Concepcion Perez Limchauco-Marasigan (or Ma. Concepcion P. Limchauco-Marasigan), maintaining the maternal surname Perez, Maria Concepcion Limchauco Marasigan (or Ma. Concepcion L. Marasigan), taking the maiden surname Limchauco as middle name and Marasigan as married surname, or keep her maiden names, remaining Maria Concepcion Perez Limchauco.