Naming Strategies for Hyphenated-Surnamed People Who Happen to Reproduce with Other Hyphenated-Surnamed People
Four original surnames produce dozens of hypothetical combinations. How overwhelming!
Start-from-scratch
Four original surnames produce dozens of hypothetical combinations. How overwhelming! Consider instead selecting among the infinite alternatives for a newly-crafted family surname.
Meditate-on-the-decision
Close your eyes. Breathe in. Feel the weight of your seventeen-character surname. Breathe out. Breathe in. Acknowledge the presence of your partner’s six syllables. Breathe out. Breathe in. Relinquish the burden of your families’ expectations.
Consult-the-grandparents
Then again, who better to select the best of four, than the four who each declined to pick the best of two? Invite the grandparents-to-be to weigh in on this key parenting decision.
Ask-the-audience-on-daytime-TV
Don’t stop with the grandparents! As you know, everyone has an opinion on hyphenation. Give your progeny a full public hearing from the sophisticated and diverse studio audience members of The View.
Leave-the-decision-up-to-chance
Flip a coin; go for best-of-three at rock-paper-scissors; try a round of Russian Roulette — winner gets naming rights.
Play-a-quick-game-of-musical-chairs
Recruit four friends, slap a name on each of them, and ask them to dance around a pair of chairs. When the music stops, the seated pair wins.
Commission-a-study-to-determine-the-objectively-optimal-surname
Which names scream “Harvard Class of 2043?”; “CEO?”; “future president of the United States?” Conduct surveys, poll focus groups, and order an economic analysis of your options to produce a name combination that absolutely no one can argue with — or so you can tell yourself.
Copy-what-tens-of-millions-of-hyphenates-have-done-already-in-large-swaths-of-the-world
Discover that tens of millions of people globally have already devised a convention for next-generation hyphenation: A-B + C-D = A-C. Revel in the simplicity of the convention; wonder how you possibly missed it; curse the generation-skipping patriarchal slyness of it.
Choose-a-name-combination-likely-to-find-your-kids-confused-for-members-of-the-British-Royal-Family
Stuck with Jones-Johnson and Smith-Peters? Well, Pip Pip Cheerio to those peasant stylings! Why not Saxe-Coburg-Gotha? Mountbatten-Windsor? Bonham-Carter? Keep people guessing.
Unleash-an-exponential-dynasty-of-surnames-upon-the-world-by-passing-down-all-four-names-to-the-next-generation
Sometimes there is no compromise other than to pass on all four names. Lean into it: create a new generation of quadri-hyphenates, who someday may create octo-hyphenates, and so on exponentially until the end of time. How will any of these names fit on a new passport application? That’s the State Department’s problem.
You-know-what?-Forget-it!-Who-says-your-children-even-need-a-stupid-surname-anyway?
Madonna, Usher, Adele — do you know their last names? And is that a problem? See? A child needs no surname. They’ll be fine without one. They’ll be iconic.
Oh-good-grief!-Just-tell-the-rest-of-the-world-to-buzz-off-and-make-the-right-naming-decision-for-YOUR-family!
No one will remember it anyway.
Alice Phillips is a writer, parent, and occasional lawyer from South Carolina. Her work has appeared in The Belladonna and McSweeney’s. Her author photo is 9 years old.
