What's in a name?
I read with some interest last week this article about "meshing" of names (instead of a woman taking her husbands surname in marriage, the surnames of the couple are joined together in a way to create a totally new name for both partners). This week we have an article about the husband taking his wife's name after marriage.
These articles are of interest because of my situation and has been ongoing for the last 18 years! I had children before I was married to Julian and after discussion we agreed that Bouttell was more distinctive as a name than Williams, and so the children were given the surname Bouttell. We also considered Julian taking the name Bouttell but that never came about. When we got married, the conversation again turned to surnames. If I were to take the traditional route, I would be Williams but the girls would have to change their names as well which seemed unfair. Julian could become Mr Bouttell or we could go the double barrelled route- "Williams-Bouttell" or "Bouttell-Williams". Well I find double barrelled names pretty ghastly (sorry but they sound ridiculous mostly and are usually cumbersome!) but for some reason our church seems to have taken it into their heads that we are Bouttell-Williams. Can you imagine a Bouttell-Williams marrying a Gascoigne-Richards? What fun that would entail! So I'd like to dispel that myth for all NCBC people- I'm Helen Bouttell, the daughters are all Bouttell and Julian remains a Williams, OK? But as for meshing we have taken to using Bouttelliams to shortcut and I guess that's acceptable to be used by others if need be!
posted by Helsalata @ 8:04 am
4 comments
4 Comments:
Thank you for clarifying the name situation.
I agree double barrelled names can be cumbersome but they can be fun!
For example, if you really don't want to talk to someone or reply to a letter, it can be handy.
Operators from call centres (especially Indian ones)always seem to use only the last part of my name when calling. I then reply that "there is noone of that name here", ask them to update their records and quickly and politely conclude the call without revealing my identity.
Also, when I was at college computers were just being introduced to the processing of grant cheques. The one at my Poly crashed when it encountered the hyphen in my name so after that the cheque was produced manually which meant I got it quicker!
Thanks for that Big K! Lets hope that you never have to sign lots of letters, documents and cheques!
On an aside, I dont know if you have your own blog but we are unable to access it by clicking on your name. I think you need to enable something on your template settings.
Of course if the denial of access is deliberate then that is fine! But do feel free to drop by on a regular basis to comment. It makes things more fun!
how do you pronounce "Bouttelliams"?? ;-)
If you can't pronounce it then you're not allowed to use it! ;-)
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