Choosing a surname
If you think you're stuck with your last name, think again. Nowadays, with more and more women keeping their surnames after marriage, it's becoming common to pick and choose the last name for a child, as well as the first. In fact, the parents in our case studies came up with all kinds of interesting ways to change, combine, or alternate their surnames. One forward-thinking way is to use the wife's instead of the husband's. When Martin Bogner married Hannah Wolf, he took her surname, and John French became John West when his wife Amy was pregnant with their first child (see the previous article, "Changing names, first and last").
Another idea is to alternate surnames between siblings. Ashley Walker and Martin Westhead kept their own names, but they planned to use Ashley's surname for a girl and Martin's for a boy. Their first son, Faelan Westhead, got his father's surname. When they had a second boy three years later, Ashley still wanted her turn, so the second son became Taye Walker. Likewise, Lenore Skenazy and Joe Kolman used Joe's name for their first son, Morris Kolman, and Lenore's for the second, Isaac Skenazy.
A third option is to use both surnames, with or without hyphenation. In Mexico, children receive both parents' last names, dad's first and mom's second. So if your first name is Pedro, your father's surname is Torrez, and your mother's maiden name is Mendoza, you'd officially be Pedro Torrez Mendoza and you'd simply go by Pedro Torrez. We took that idea and did it the other way around, putting Walker Reyes on the birth certificate for each child. Someday, they can choose to go by both surnames, but we figure Reyes will probably be used more often among friends and in school records.
If your surnames share similar phonemes, you can also just combine them into one word, as in Walkereyes (Walker and Reyes), Woolbaum (Wool and Baum), Hantrosio (Han and Antrosio), or even Wench (West and French). Finally, you can choose a new name together, as Giovanna Capuani and Robert Pfaendler did when they became the Queetos (see "Symbolic Matches").
Another idea is to alternate surnames between siblings. Ashley Walker and Martin Westhead kept their own names, but they planned to use Ashley's surname for a girl and Martin's for a boy. Their first son, Faelan Westhead, got his father's surname. When they had a second boy three years later, Ashley still wanted her turn, so the second son became Taye Walker. Likewise, Lenore Skenazy and Joe Kolman used Joe's name for their first son, Morris Kolman, and Lenore's for the second, Isaac Skenazy.
A third option is to use both surnames, with or without hyphenation. In Mexico, children receive both parents' last names, dad's first and mom's second. So if your first name is Pedro, your father's surname is Torrez, and your mother's maiden name is Mendoza, you'd officially be Pedro Torrez Mendoza and you'd simply go by Pedro Torrez. We took that idea and did it the other way around, putting Walker Reyes on the birth certificate for each child. Someday, they can choose to go by both surnames, but we figure Reyes will probably be used more often among friends and in school records.
If your surnames share similar phonemes, you can also just combine them into one word, as in Walkereyes (Walker and Reyes), Woolbaum (Wool and Baum), Hantrosio (Han and Antrosio), or even Wench (West and French). Finally, you can choose a new name together, as Giovanna Capuani and Robert Pfaendler did when they became the Queetos (see "Symbolic Matches").
