Last Names (Smith-Johnson)?

Question

When women sign their name with two last names hypened....what exactly does that mean? Does that mean they are married and have kept their maiden name as well as added their married name on, or they are engaged and just putting both last names to get everything straight?

Example: Amy Smith-Bly

Thanks!

Answer 1

from your question it is the former.

Answer 2

Aside from characters out of an Evelyn Waugh novel, since your question lists the names as Smith-Johnson, I'm presuming you are referring to contemporary English or Anglo-American naming practices? To mention perhaps the most famous example of the same, Hilary Rodham Clinton at one time used both her maiden and married surnames together, although she didn't actually use a hyphen between Rodham and Clinton.

Similarly, nowadays many women wish to keep their own professional identity in addition to also acknowledging their married status, a practice that results in names like Amy Smith-Bly--and goes at least as far back as Elizabeth Barrett Browning (again, no hypen). Also, in the American South, children are sometimes given their mother's maiden name as a middle name, even if, the hyphen isn't necessarily used.

In Hispanic cultures, however, the mother's and dad's surnames go in the opposite order than the English practice of placing the wife's name before the husband's: a child's first surname is usually the name of the father's family while the second surname is the name of the mother's family. However, upon immigrating to the United States, the family may actually "Anglicize" this order, so in doubt, it's best to ask.

Answer 3

Surname selection upon marriage is culturally based. Different cultures have different common methods. What I write is based on the US.

Husband: John Henry Jones
Wife: Jane Mary Smith

Historically, upon marriage the wife took the surname of the husband. So Jane Mary Smith would change to Jane Mary Jones.

In more recent times, some women decided, each for their own personal reasons, that they did not want to totally lose their birth name. One common way (in the last 60 years or so) this was accomplished was that during the name change, they made their birth surname their middle name.

So Jane Mary Smith would change to Jane Smith Jones.

Another way was to just not change their name upon marriage...this started happening more frequently in the 1970s. Thus after marriage, Jane Mary Smith would STILL be Jane Mary Smith - no name change.

A more recent "invention" if you will is to use compound surnames. That is, the woman upon marriage would keep her birth name but then add the spouses surname as a hyphenated addition

So Jane Mary Smith after marriage would change the surname to Jane Mary Smith-Jones.

While there is no absolute requirement, I would suspect 99% of the time, the birth surname occurs first (Smith) then the spouses surname second (Jones).

From a genealogist standpoint, finding such a surname is a gold mine. In one discovery, you now know both the woman's birth surname and the surname of her spouse!

But it is cultural based. There are more rare instances of the hyphenated surname. One such example happens (rarely but it does happen) when there are members of two rather powerful families, and it is desired to maintain clear association with BOTH sides.

So a Vanderbilt marries a Rockefeller. To keep the association with both powerful families clear, the surname (either the wife or sometimes even children [male or female]) use the surname Vanderbilt-Rockfeller. Though I feel sorry for them taking standardized tests because by the time they finish filling in the bubbles for their name, half the time to take the test has already passed.

But in other cultures, there are many different surname methods. Iberian [Spain, Portugal, Azores - extended to Latin America] surnames are the most fun. A person can have 1 surname, 2 surnames (each parent) or even 4 surnames (each grandparent). And they can use one surname today and two different ones tomorrow, can organize them any way they want at any given time. Also, in many cases, a woman does not change her name at all after marriage -- though she can -- adding an additional 1, 2 or 4 surnames to her existing 1, 2 or 4 surnames. It's loads of fun as a genealogist working with Iberian rooted families.

But it's cultural. And dynamic - changing all the time.

Answer 4

Mind Bender, just above me, said it best. I just wanted to add that double-barreled surnames were quite popular in the upper classes in England, especially during the last half of the 1800's and the first third of the 1900s.

So, Miss Jane Thorpington-Smythe might be 6, with no marriage in sight, just the daughter of the former Miss Elizabeth Thorpington and Mr. Reginald Errol Smythe III.

They (DBSs) crop up in PG Wodehouse all the time.

Answer 5

Agreed, it is that they are married and want to keep their maiden name too.