Hyphenated surnames

I deal with one coach who has a hyphenated surname through marriage, but she has opted to deal with it through keeping her hyphenation in print but her girls all know her as Coach "Maidenname."

I cover coaches who get married all the time and yes, it's the 2020s. But haven't come across the male hyphenated coach yet. I did have one football athlete "come out" as hyphenated this summer when he committed to a very major college. How do you others handle that?

 

Mods, feel free to move this to the journo board.

 

Use the name he prefers.

Am I missing something? This seems pretty simple.

 

If their name is the hyphenated name, that's what you use. Curiously, I had a coach get married and take her husband's name ...which was hyphenated. And she never pronounced it right. She only used the last part of that name when she introduced herself. I knew her husband. I knew what the name was. I used the full name. I understand why a woman who hyphenates would still be called by her maiden name, but if she changed her name, that's what you use in print/media. And if a man tells you he has a new last name, you use that.

 

It gets hairy when they change their mind. Area QB once had Smith, then Smith-Jones, then Jones.

One game after Jones, Mr Smith (dad) charged the press box steps demanding the PA announcer say Smith. Poor guy had no idea the background and was just reading the roster

 

We go to church with a few hyphenated-name families. When the parents got married, they took on the hyphenated last name.

I wonder what's going to happen when their kids grow up, fall in love and get married. Will Timmy Jones-Smith and Wendi Davis-Howard become Timmy and Wendi Jones-Smith-Davis-Howard, or Davis-Howard-Jones-Smith.

 

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce wonders what all the fuss is about.

 

The coach who comes to mind is not hyphenated. She took her coach-husband's last name when they got married. However, several years and two kids later, she's still known colloquially as Coach Maidenname.

In stories, I often use both names on first reference: First Maiden Married.

I've had both of them in several stories, and use Maiden Married for her throughout. Her husband is not thrilled, but he's come to accept it.

Aside: I use Maiden Name -- no first when I speak to either of them, like her athletes and colleagues do. I've known her longer than he has!

 

I support a person using any name they wish, but it makes it hard to fit in a stick hed.

Which is how I judge a lot of things I suppose.

 

I’m seeing more and more multi-surname kids especially as I work with more Hispanic kids. Just roll with it.

We hyphenated my son’s name mostly because my wife never understood why women changed their names (so I did it as a thank you to her for taking my name) and for my Mexican heritage where kids take the sur name of both parents.

He may drop one or the other one day to keep it simple (many of my students only go by one not both. My dad uses one as his middle name).

It’s easier just to ask and go with it.

 

Whenever I hear about hyphenated names, I always think of the job interview scene in Big.

 

Many, many moons ago, I wrote a caption featuring local high school coach and referred to her by her maiden name. We were kids together and went to school together. It was probably the most honest mistake I've ever made in my life. In the story I referred to her as Coach Married Name, but in one caption, I had a brain fart. Her husband called me up, giving me hell, claiming that people were asking him if they were getting divorced. I apologized and said it was an honest mistake, and if people thought that, he had bigger problems than a newspaper cut line.
What I wanted to tell him was STFU and that I "knew" her long before he did.