Double-barrelled surnamesCan you lose your identity in a double-barrelled surname?So, you are getting married and thinking about creating a double-barrel surname from yours and your future spouse’s surnames. Maybe there is another reason you want that type of surname. Something you want to preserve. Here is something to consider. Instead of keeping two surnames, two identities, you might just end up with one and the one that is not even yours. Let’s say, your surname is Johnson and your spouse’s to be is William. You combine the two and get JohnsonWilliam. That sounds pretty good and unique, and what is most important you have both last names preserved. Or, say your surname is Wermers and the other surname you want to keep is Kirchen. You combine the two and get WermersKirchen. So, what is the concern? The concern is that what you have created is not necessarily as unique as you thought it might be. That JohnsonWilliam surname already exists. In fact according to the 2000 USA Census records, there were 125 people in the United States bearing that name. Why is it a concern again? After all it is very likely that the original JonsonWilliam was created by combining Jonhson and William surnames, right? You are going to do the same, right? That is all true, but the original combining happened long time ago. That means that now, JohnsonWilliam has its own history and identity different from simply Johnson and William. Simple Johnson and William are your identity. By combining the two names you will join the already existing surname that has similar roots but still already already different. It still makes sense to double-barrel names of course. Just understand that by doing that you might not only preserve something from your identity but also get something new that is not really yours. A stronger case against double-barrelling is seen when the resulting surname is very popular and/or looks like a single surname by itself. Imagine there are two surnames you want to preserve: Christ and Ianson. They result in ChristIanson. According to the 2000 USA Census there were 6985 Chists and 129 Iansons in the country. There were also 11866 Christiansons. That really means that very soon, your double-barrelled surname will be thought of as Christianson. By combining the two name to preserve two names, you will most likely completely swap your two old identity with new one. And the new one will not have either of your surnames in it. What do we suggest you do about it? Make sure your new surname protects your double identity and not robs you of it. Below you will find a list of a majority surnames that can potentially be created by double-barrelling other surnames. Check if your new surname is one of them. If it is, watch out if the double-barrelled surname is very popular, or at least more popular than the surnames that it can be created from. Also see if it is indeed created from your base surnames. If the basic origins match, and the double surname is not as popular as the base surnames, then you are good to go. Otherwise proceed with caution;-) One other advice is to use hyphens to join the names. That will keep the base names separate and distinct for longer. We started with all 151,671 surnames from the census. But then we started looking only at longer surname, seven and six character long. Looking for combining shorter surnames results in meaningless double-barrelled surnames and their numbers become completely unmanageable. Potential double-barrelled surnames created with original surnames with at least seven characters each.
Potential double-barrelled surnames created with original surnames with at least six characters each.
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