toml@oliveb.UUCP (Tom Long) (08/30/85)
In the discussion about hyphenated names, their purpose seems to have been overlooked. Hyphenated names are common in cultures where you a treated in accordance with the social position of your *family* rather than in accordance with your own capabilities. When Miss Rockefeller marries Mr Smith, for instance, she wants everyone to know that she and her children are Rockefellers, not just plain Smiths. So she uses the name Smith-Rockefeller. After a while the followers follow suite, and Miss Hamburger wants to do the same thing when she marries Mr Jones. Until children are born, Miss Hamburger can keep her maiden name with no more difficulty than confusing people who expect members of a household to have a single name. But the kids present a problem. I don't think it is fair to call the poor kids Jones-Hamburger. I suggest that if Miss Hamburger doesn't want to change her name to Jones, she and her fiance can choose a satisfactory substitute -- like Mr and Mrs Rockefeller. Of course in the United States we like to imagine that your name doesn't matter -- that the happy pair could just as well use Miss Hamburger's mother's maiden name. Tom Long