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by jammygit 2417 days ago
How does that work after 2 generations? Wouldn’t you end up with names like this, and longer afterwards? Which ones are carried on?

Bob Jones Alexander Richardson Hill

2 comments

People are free to choose what they want but you mainly keep only the "main" surname from each parent.

I know in England there was a tendency of people keeping both names of powerful families[1][2], then as double-barreled surnames. Which then sometimes went a bit nuts a few generations later if they married into other double-barreled families [3].

I think it was when I visited Stowe School, the seat of the Dukes of Buckingham and looked at the family tree, that I even saw some surnames repeated if they married into other families which shared one of their multi-barreled surnames...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/nov/02/keeping...

[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/parenting/are-we-heading-...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Temple-Nugent-Brydges-...

I don't know about the OP, but in Quebec this is fairly common. Usually you have 2 surnames until you turn 18 and then you choose one of them. I really like the idea of this, personally.