Hyphenated headaches

I always wondered about this when it came to hyphenated names. Women these days are wanting to keep their name and hyphenate it with their newly wed spouse. So you get the woman's first name, her last name, and then the husbands last name. I always wondered, when kids come along, if they take the hyphenated names as well. So you would get Jane Doe who married John Smith, she is now Jane Doe-Smith. Then little bouncing Diane Doe-Smith comes along. Diane Doe-Smith meets Bobby Brown and marries him and (Diane taking influence from mother and society) is now Diane Doe-Smith-Brown.

I always thought that this was a far flung hypothetical mockery of the whole system that I usually create in my own head but would never happen in real life. Well, that was before I read the Opinion/Comments page of the Edmonton Sun on August 1st. Look at her name? Angela Nesbitt-Dorn-Kennett? Good lord, how many men has this woman either married, or is she a second generation last name hyphenator?

What could be worse you ask? Picture this problem in the deep south of the United States where they have a weakness for mixing two first names like Bobbi-Sue, Billy-Bob, Bobbi-Jean. My god, after 3 generations of hyphenations the kid is going to be 14 years old before s/he can write his/her full name of Bobbi-Jean (or Billy-Bob) Smith-Doe-Barker-Johnson. Even worse if you add in the fact that people are naming their kids stranger and stranger names these days. Maybe that is why the Egyptians and English royalty kept pushing breeding in the family. Not because of the mixing of blood lines but because the women were hyphenating names and the guys just got tired of all the hyphens so they just married the women with the same name as them to avoid all the confusion of huge ass names.

http://www.edmontonsun.ca/Comment/Letters/2007/08/01/4384504.html