A double-barrelled name is a type of compound surname, typically featuring two words (occasionally more), often joined by a hyphen.
Notable people with double-barrelled names include Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.
Notable persons with unhyphenated double-barrelled names include politicians David Lloyd George (who used the hyphen when appointed to the peerage) and Iain Duncan Smith, composers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Andrew Lloyd Webber, military historian B. H. Liddell Hart, soldier and translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff, evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith, astronomer Robert Hanbury Brown, actresses Kristin Scott Thomas and Helena Bonham Carter (the last of whom has said the hyphen is optional, and indeed several of her relatives use it in their names),[3] footballer Emile Smith Rowe, musician Romy Madley Croft, and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (whose cousins, psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen and film-maker Ash Baron-Cohen, use the hyphen in their names).
[4] Many British noble or gentry families have double-barrelled surnames, examples of which include Bowes-Lyon, Bulwer-Lytton, Cavendish-Bentinck, Chetwynd-Talbot, Crichton-Stuart, Douglas-Hamilton, Douglas-Home, FitzAlan-Howard, Gascoyne-Cecil, Gathorne-Hardy, Gordon-Lennox, Hely-Hutchinson, Innes-Ker, Monckton-Arundell, Petty-Fitzmaurice, Pleydell-Bouverie, Sackville-West, Scudamore-Stanhope, Spencer-Churchill, and Windsor-Clive.
An example of an unhyphenated double-barrelled surname is that of the Holmes à Court family, which includes the Barons Heytesbury.
A few British noble or gentry families have triple-barrelled surnames, examples of which include Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, Baillie-Hamilton-Arden, Cave-Browne-Cave, Douglas-Scott-Montagu, Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, Pelham-Clinton-Hope, Smith-Dorrien-Smith, Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Venables-Vernon-Harcourt, and Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes.
There is at least one instance of an unhyphenated triple-barrelled surname: that of the Montagu Douglas Scott family, to which the Dukes of Buccleuch belong.
These include Cameron-Ramsay-Fairfax-Lucy, Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, and Stirling-Home-Drummond-Moray.
On the other hand, actual double-barrelled names exist (called apellidos compuestos), such as Calvo-Sotelo or López-Portillo.
The person can either use a paternal and a maternal surname combined (Aníbal Cavaco Silva) or use a double last name that has been passed down through one of the parents (António Lobo Antunes).
The use of more than two surnames in public life is less common, but not unusual (see Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen).
[8] Prior to this, it was permitted for adults (e.g., Simone Greiner-Petter-Memm and formerly Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann-Maier-Leibniz[8]), but their children would not inherit the name.
Until the late twentieth century, it was only possible for a woman to add her maiden name onto that of her husband, not the other way round, therefore Ms. Schmidt would become Mrs. Meyer-Schmidt.
According to The Guardian, his name derives from "the 17th century, when two farming families in the Enschede area of the Netherlands intermarried.
Nowadays, couples can choose any combination of surnames for official use (although their legal name will remain unchanged).
This was a result of two naming acts obliging commoners to adopt heritable surnames, passed first for the Duchy of Schleswig in 1771 and then for Denmark proper in 1828.
Polish triple-barreled surnames are known to exist: an example is the one borne by Ludwik Kos-Rabcewicz-Zubkowski [pl], a university professor and writer living in Canada.
In Russia, double-barreled surnames are somewhat uncommon, but normal and accepted practice, often associated with some families of note wishing to preserve both of their lineages.
Federal law #143-FZ "On Civil State Acts" explicitly allows double-barreled names in its Article 18 but limits such compound surnames to two parts only.
Запись фамилии, имени и отчества ребенка при государственной регистрации рождения 1.
При государственной регистрации рождения фамилия ребенка записывается по фамилии его родителей.
Двойная фамилия ребенка может состоять не более чем из двух слов, соединенных при написании дефисом.
The double surname of the child may consist of no more than two words, connected when written with a hyphen.Turkish tradition offers options to couples for naming conventions after marriage.
Some noms-dits were the war-name of the first settler, while he was a soldier: Hébert dit Jolicœur ("pretty heart", cf.
Others denoted a characteristic of the person or of his dwelling: Lacourse ("the run"), Lépine ("the thorn"), Larivière ("the river").
An example of the former is that of the Vaughan-Richards family, a branch of the Nigerian royal-turned-American emancipated slave Prince Scipio Vaughan, who maintain their mother's last name as well as their father's.
[clarification needed] For example, Hispanic American politician Antonio Villar and his wife Corina Raigosa adopted the "blended" surname Villaraigosa upon their marriage in 1987.
[13] In Belgium and Germany, member states of the European Union, courts have refused to register children under the surname given according to a foreign naming tradition.
In Canada, especially Quebec, it is common for children born since the 1970s to bear both parents' surnames, with no established rules as to whether the father's or mother's name should come first.
(In Quebec, under the provisions of the Civil Code enacted in 1980,[16] both spouses must retain their original surnames upon marriage.)