merrill@gigi.DEC (Rick GIGI::Merrill DECRITE) (09/24/84)
It is a long standing tradition in many families of my acquaintance to give a male child the mother's last name as his middle name and a girl child the first name of a woman in the mother's line. This blends the two sets of names while preserving the family identity. Hyphenated names got started when neither family, like two movie stars, would accept what they perceived as "second billing!" rmm