{"id":14241,"date":"2019-06-27T14:44:24","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T18:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14241"},"modified":"2019-11-03T10:15:58","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T14:15:58","slug":"baby-naming-issue-hyphenated-middle-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2019\/06\/27\/baby-naming-issue-hyphenated-middle-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Hyphenated Middle Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I have a question for you and your readers regarding hyphenated middle names.<\/p>\n

A little background \u2013 we have four kids and are expecting our fifth, and likely last, baby in the fall. Our four kids are named Eli Michael (mn after my dad), Ezra Matthew (mn after my husband), Emmeline Kaye (mn after my mother-in-law) and Eben Jacob (mn after my grandfather). We pronounce our daughter\u2019s full name as Em-eh-LEEN, but mostly call her Emme (pronounced like Emmie). The first names are all names that we loved and middle names all honor various family members. Now we are expecting another girl and will likely follow the pattern of choosing an E name that we like for the first name and a family name for the middle name. Our top choice right now is Eulalie, with Elisabeth and Edwina as distant alternatives. In terms of middle names, we\u2019d like to honor my grandmother Ada. I like the sound of Eulalie Ada, but not nearly as much as that of Eulalie Ada-Rose. (Rose is not a family name, just a name we like.) Other family names we\u2019ve considered are Bella (my other grandmother\u2019s name) and Anna (my name), but I like Ada-Rose the most, I think.<\/p>\n

And that brings me to my question. I know plenty of people have hyphenated last names, but what about a hyphenated middle name? My husband thinks I\u2019m created unnecessary difficulties, but I like Eulalie Ada-Rose considerably more than Eulalie Ada Rose, and I like that a hyphen makes it clear that Ada-Rose are both part of the middle name and not part of the first name. But is it worth the trouble? What is the trouble, exactly? This is unchartered territory for us so I was curious if you or your readers had any insights.<\/p>\n

Thank you! We really appreciate it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I haven’t had to manage a hyphen before, so I will be very interested to hear what complications people with hyphens have had: do some forms not accept them? do some forms eliminate them? do people sometimes omit them accidentally, creating hyphenless mash-ups? etc.<\/p>\n

But I HAVE dealt with a double middle name, so I can tell you two things that appeal to me right away about your hyphen idea:<\/p>\n

1. It makes it clear that the two names are both middle names. We occasionally (at least, before I learned to head it off at the pass) had people thinking that the second middle name was part of a two-name surname.<\/p>\n

2. It gives you ONE middle initial even though you get both names. We fairly regularly encounter forms that allow for only one middle initial, and it bothers me to have to pick one. Eulalie Ada-Rose would have the middle initial “A.”<\/p>\n

And in your particular case, there is one more reason to favor the hyphen:<\/p>\n

3. All the other kids have one middle name, not two; using Ada-Rose makes it feel like one middle name. It’s no big deal to suddenly break the pattern—but I say that with a deep forehead wrinkle. It would bother me a little, though I do feel that with The Last Baby you can pretty easily use the explanation “We ran out of babies but not out of names!” or “It was our one last chance to use Rose!” or whatever.<\/p>\n

But also one reason to be against it:<\/p>\n

1. All of the other kids have family middle names, and now this last child’s middle would be a family name combined with a non-family name. It dilutes the honor and changes the pattern. Especially if your Grandma Ada is still alive, I wouldn’t want to make her wonder why everyone else got their name honored as-is, but hers was modified. Again: it’s no big deal to break a pattern if you want to. But: deep forehead wrinkle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name update:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

Thank you so much to you and to your readers for posting our question regarding a hyphenated middle name for our fifth child whom we planned to call Eulalie. For nearly all of this pregnancy that was our top choice for our daughter\u2019s name, but towards the last couple weeks my husband wanted to find something \u201cless frilly and more solid\u201d. We went back to the drawing board and both agreed that we liked the nickname Edie. Our baby girl was born on November 1 (just barely missing a Halloween birthday) and we were still going back and forth between Elodie and Edolie. We picked Elodie initially, but it just didn\u2019t seem to match her spunky little personality. After spending a little more time with her, I new Edith was the right name for our little girl. For her middle name, I wanted to honor one of the women on my side of the family since our older daughter\u2019s middle name is after my wonderful mother-in-law. Finally, we landed on Annabel as a middle name with Anna after yours truly and \u201cBel\u201d after my late maternal grandmother, Bella. I am a bit sad that we didn\u2019t incorporate my other grandmother\u2019s name (Ada) into Edith\u2019s name somehow, but I do love Annabel as a m.n. for our little Edith (I was also considering Adabel, but didn\u2019t like it as much) and I know my late grandma Ada would have absolutely approved. Thank you again for all your advice. We can\u2019t wait to take baby Edith home today and introduce her to all her big brothers and sister. <\/p>\n

Best,
\nAnna<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle, I have a question for you and your readers regarding hyphenated middle names. A little background \u2013 we have four kids and are expecting our fifth, and likely last, baby in the fall. Our four kids are named Eli Michael (mn after my dad), Ezra Matthew (mn after my husband), Emmeline Kaye (mn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3HH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14241"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14400,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14241\/revisions\/14400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}