I am looking for more organically merged last names.

August 3, 2011 7:31 PM

Growing up, I knew a lot of kids whose parents had merged their last names with a hyphen. But I can't think of one couple who merged their last names organically into a brand new name. To give you an example, if Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got married and merged their last names into a brand new name, it would be "Polie", or "Jitt." I am looking for real life examples of people who have consciously done just such a thing. Thanks.
posted by Sully to Human Relations (56 answers total)

My sister and her female bride wanted one name, but not to choose between theirs. They came up out of blue with Alden, because it's tree, and they imagine themselves each as branches.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:34 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I knew a couple who did this. However, I am not comfortable posting their names because I am no longer in touch with them and have no way of asking them if they'd be comfortable with me posting their name/s.
posted by sciencegeek at 7:35 PM on August 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

My gynecologist and his wife did this. But I don't feel like I can tell you their last name because it's very unique, obviously, and they are the only result on google for it. I'm guessing that might be a common problem with answers to this question!
posted by not that girl at 7:36 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yah, I know someone who did this as well. Likewise a little leery of posting someone's (obviously unique) name without their permission.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:37 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

A couple I know recently merged their last names into a brand new name. His last name was really hard to pronounce (it ended with "teczko"), and hers was short and easy to pronounce, so they took the first few letters of his last name and stuck it in front of her entire last name.

They had to go through legally changing their names (and their son's name, too). Before the name change, I believe they all hyphenated.

(And upon preview, I agree with everyone who is not very eager to post the resultant name)
posted by Lucinda at 7:38 PM on August 3, 2011

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his former wife did this.
posted by Knappster at 7:38 PM on August 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Ok, I did a bit of googling and one member of the couple I know actually has a Wikipedia entry which mentions how they combined their names, to wit, "The name Dreslough (pronounced DRESS-lock) is a unique name, created by combining the former surnames Dresser and McLoughlin."
posted by sciencegeek at 7:40 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

My friend and her partner merged their names into one name without a hyphen, so instead of being Brown-Miller, e.g., they both changed their last name to Brownmiller, one word.
posted by nakedmolerats at 7:43 PM on August 3, 2011

And Villaraigosa still goes by that even though he's been divorced for a few years. I found it difficult to remember how to spell until I learned it was made up of the two separate names.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 7:43 PM on August 3, 2011

I know a couple who were Ms. Jones and Mr. Lee (I'm not using real names); after marriage they became Mr. and Mrs. Joneslee.
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:45 PM on August 3, 2011

Measha Gosman and Markus Brugger got married and changed their last names to Brueggergosman. She's an amazing singer, btw.
posted by foxjacket at 7:45 PM on August 3, 2011

I had two friends merge their last names last year when they got married- I don't want to post the details here since they are uniquely Googleable. She had a very long Germanic last name ending in "enbacher" and they stuck the front half of his not-that-exciting last name to the beginning of that...so if his last name had been Johnson instead of what it was they'd have ended up with Johnenbacher.
posted by charmedimsure at 7:47 PM on August 3, 2011

I knew a couple that merged Berg and Leblanc to Leberg.
posted by sadtomato at 7:47 PM on August 3, 2011

Two teachers at my high school, before they were married, were, let's say, Clark and Kelly; now they're Clarkelly. Not their actual names -- but the first letter of one's last name and the last letter of the other's last name are the same, which probably explains why they didn't use the other order. Since as far as Google knows the only people with their name are them and their two kids, I'm not giving the actual name.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:48 PM on August 3, 2011

This guy did it. Roehlke + Partain.
posted by 4ster at 7:54 PM on August 3, 2011

Yep, some relatives of mine did this, along the same lines as the "Clarkelly" example posted above, where the first letter of one name was the same as the last letter of the other name.
posted by cider at 7:54 PM on August 3, 2011

I know three couples who have done this, in fact, and was recently remarking on it. Maybe it's the new cool thing.
posted by mlle valentine at 8:03 PM on August 3, 2011

I know a family that did this. They ended up taking the first half of dad's last name and the last half of mom's last name and that became the last name of the whole family (changed when parents got married a bit before second baby was born). It sounds like a completely normal last name. I wouldn't have known if I didn't help the kids with a family tree homework assignment.
posted by Swisstine at 8:08 PM on August 3, 2011

I know of a couple who wanted very much to do this, but the paperwork required to merge their names (and change her children's names) was too much for them. The groom ended up taking the bride's last name, because his own sounded vaguely pejorative.
(Not a direct answer, I know, but if you are thinking about doing this, be forewarned that it may take some time and effort).
posted by Bergamot at 8:14 PM on August 3, 2011

The parents of a couple of kids I went to high school with did this... except with their kids' first names. Their oldest son got the first half of his dad's first name plus the second half of his mom's. When his younger brother was born, they did the same thing the other way around.

I would suggest thinking carefully before adopting this strategy.
posted by teraflop at 8:19 PM on August 3, 2011

My wife and I were joking around about this, if we joined our names at the middle it would be Lovey. Pretty hilarious, but having to explain that my name is made up would be a bit much.
posted by tremspeed at 8:24 PM on August 3, 2011

Portland chefs Michael Hebb and Naomi Pomeroy changed their last names to Hebberoy. When they divorced (after Michael ran their businesses into the ground and skipped town), she went back to Pomeroy and he stuck with Hebberoy. More info here.
posted by Awkward Philip at 8:34 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

--My cousin: Souto (her) and Wood (him) became Soutowood.

--My friend's parents: Brown (her) and Higginbotham (him) became Braunginn. This one was particularly interesting because the dad has an identical twin brother; both are well known in town, but the brother is still a Higginbotham.

And my favorite of all time: a couple who attended my first college a few years before I got there were married and hyphenated as the Lamm-Crapps. (Yes. The Lamm-Crapps.) I believe they were married for a year or two before giving up and changing their name to Cralam.
posted by Madamina at 8:38 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I know someone who did this. The resulting name is not pleasing to my ear or eye, but I'm not the one who has to be pleased about it.
posted by pinky at 8:49 PM on August 3, 2011

A know a couple who merged Bowser and MacDonald into Bomac. They did this before they had kids, so when they did have kids they were all Bomac.
posted by arcticwoman at 8:52 PM on August 3, 2011

In elementary school my brother had a classmate whose parents, Herman and Cassandra, did something like this to create her given name: Hermandra.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:54 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I know at least three couples who did this (all college classmates of mine), including Rob and Anna Prestezog (Prestegard + Hartzog).
posted by mbrubeck at 8:59 PM on August 3, 2011

I know a couple who apparently did this. The wife is an alum of my undergrad school with a very distinctive first name. An alumni note mentioned that name with a surname not that of the husband I knew. (I worked with them both.) I thought "Oh, no, they split! They were so happy!"

A while later in a random Googling session I found a picture of them both with the new surname that I had thought came from a new husband and was relieved. It's not an obvious combo of the two names.
posted by jgirl at 9:10 PM on August 3, 2011

Similarly, I am a Byrd and seriously dated a Lyon for a while. Sort of sad it didn't work out, because Griffon was going to be our kick-ass married name.
posted by thebrokedown at 9:18 PM on August 3, 2011 [27 favorites]

Surely you'd go with Gryffon, with a y, thebrokendown...

Anyway, with slight name changes:

One of my friends' mom's last name is Brecht and his dad's last name is Carville. They still go by their own surnames, but their children are the Brecharvilles.
posted by papayaninja at 9:27 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've been putting in a serious campaign to do this with my partner. There are no males on her side of the family so her surname ends with her and I'm the last male with my surname so our lineage ends with me. So I've suggested we combine out surnames to create a new lineage.

Quirk (hers) + McKenna (mine) = Quirkenna

I think its awesome. She remains unconcinved. Think I have around a year to convince her.
posted by AzzaMcKazza at 9:38 PM on August 3, 2011

Virginia Delegate David Englin was David English and his wife (a prominent political consultant in Northern Virginia) was Shayna Wolin - this one seems to have worked a bit more smoothly (Englin doesn't sound fake at all to my ear) than some of the examples above.
posted by naoko at 9:41 PM on August 3, 2011

My husband's cousin did this. It turned out to be a pretty good name. We considered it but couldn't find a non-goofy way to make the names work together.

A childhood friend of a friend had a first name that was made out of her parents' first names. Oh please please please, don't do that to your child.
posted by troublesome at 10:01 PM on August 3, 2011

Mr. Mann + Ms. Fox = Mr. & Mrs. Foxman. I think this is awesome!

I just checked, and there are a lot of Foxmans out there, so I don't feel like I've compromised them.

I just wish I could think of a euphonious way to combine "Thomas" and "Puckett".
posted by amtho at 10:11 PM on August 3, 2011

Thomkatt!
posted by treehorn+bunny at 10:27 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you're failing at combining your last names as-is in to a nice-sounding surname, could you find better sounding phonemes from your familial names that may have been changed in to their current form? Like an immigrant ancestor that changed their name to your current last names. Was there an original surname? Bring something old / lost in to the new type-of-thing.
posted by mnology at 10:39 PM on August 3, 2011

Camel + Wagner = Camner.
posted by mmdei at 10:46 PM on August 3, 2011

My friends did a fantastic and hilarious job of this -- they made an 'ethnically ludicrous' name, which they now both use, from their two strongly ethnic-sounding names.

He's Jewish, she's Irish, and I'll slightly fictionalize their real-life names -- let's say his name is Steinberg and hers is McGregor. The new name: McSteinberg!
posted by kalapierson at 11:28 PM on August 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

Long ago friends were Williams + Wilson = Williamson.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 2:46 AM on August 4, 2011

I just wish I could think of a euphonious way to combine "Thomas" and "Puckett".

Pumas.

I'm married to a man with a last name that is extremely similar to my own (I don't want to attach my real last name to this account, but think Poe and Poehler), and a lot of our friends pushed us to do this. I was on board, but my husband backed out. So we each kept our own names.

I also know a couple, the bride named Roope and the groom named Carrero, who unfortunately split before they legally became the Rurreros.

(The split was unfortunate. Your mileage may vary on whether avoiding that name was unfortunate.)
posted by PercyByssheShelley at 3:44 AM on August 4, 2011

I just wish I could think of a euphonious way to combine "Thomas" and "Puckett".

Tuck.
posted by Vectorcon Systems at 5:51 AM on August 4, 2011

I had a classmate who had this kind of last name; I didn't know her parent's names until several years later and had no idea it was a blend. Theirs was a straightforward lumping - they essentially just skipped the hyphen (to fictionalize, they were Greenstein instead of Green-Stein.)
posted by heyforfour at 6:10 AM on August 4, 2011

My aunt and uncle did this and their last name is not only cool as hell, but sounds semi-normal.
posted by floweredfish at 6:27 AM on August 4, 2011

This couple did it: http://flownet.com/ron/ Last link on the page.
posted by at at 6:55 AM on August 4, 2011

Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade did this with his wife, according to their 11 1/2th anniversary book, although I don't know either of their original names.
posted by whitneyarner at 7:23 AM on August 4, 2011

I'm friends with people who did this. Clark and Berg became Clarkberg - one word, no hyphen. It's a pretty cool solution and in their case almost like their names were designed to be combined. (Even though it's of course completely none of my business, it always nonetheless bothers me when women I know give up their names when they get married.)
posted by aught at 7:28 AM on August 4, 2011

Very early in my relationship with my how-husband, we happened to meet two non-related people whose parents had done this. (Like other folks mentioned, though, it feels funny to mention them because the names are pretty distinctive. One of them actually had a double version of this; his first name was a combination of his parent's FIRST names too.) We were talking about the novelty of it over lunch one day.

Our eyes met across the table as we both did the mental rearranging of our own names, and our romantical thoughts simultaneously screeched to a halt as we figured out what our combined last name would be.

Porker.

We kept our own names instead. But if the resulting smooshing had been almost anything else, we probably would have used it.
posted by tchemgrrl at 7:34 AM on August 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I knew a couple with the surnames Stone and Burrowes. They became the Stoneburrowes, which is one of the best combination names I've ever heard.

I know a former co-worker with the last name Burns who is dating a man with the last name of Wege. Wege is Germanic and is pronounced "Vega", but of course everyone assumes it's pronounced "Wedge" or "Wedgie". Ms Burns has declared that, if she and Mr. Wege should ever get married or have kids, she will neither take the last name of Wege or become the Wege-Burns.
posted by orange swan at 8:46 AM on August 4, 2011

I had a friend in elementary school whose parents kept their unmarried names, but gave their three kids *different* combinations of those names as last names. (So, with fictionalized surnames, it was Patricia Weinberg and Bruce Steiner with kids Laura Steinberg, Maggie Weinstein, and Evan Berger.)
posted by animalrainbow at 8:58 AM on August 4, 2011

My fiancee and I are planning to do this, and will give that name to our kid(s?) as well. We have already started to use it unofficially, like for our dog's last name at the vet.

All three are unique names so I don't want to give them, but basically we are taking the first 3 letters of her last name with the last 3 letters of my last name (well, dropping the silent 4th) and the end result is a name that manages to sound like both of our names and is quite pretty, in my opinion.

I'm a big fan of this method.
posted by ohsnapdragon at 9:04 AM on August 4, 2011

My landlord and his wife combined their names to make their kids' surname (and their business name, i.e. where I write my checks to), but they don't use it themselves. It's ordinary-sounding but apparently unique (so, again, not giving the name for privacy reasons).
posted by mskyle at 10:25 AM on August 4, 2011

Sam Hallgren of the Filmspotting podcast became Sam Van Hallgren after the wedding (his wife's maiden name was Carrie Van Deest). They both took the new last name. More details and probably more examples in this USA Today article about them.
posted by mmascolino at 10:52 AM on August 4, 2011

Oh, also, two friends of mine just got married and did something sort of along these lines...the woman's last name was "Jansen" and the man's was "Peterson", and now they are both "Petersen."
posted by heyforfour at 11:08 AM on August 4, 2011

I just wish I could think of a euphonious way to combine "Thomas" and "Puckett".

Ketthom, Masett.

Puckas, er, no.

I worked with a woman who combined her name with her husband's. His last name was almost all vowels, like Auell, and she was a Mac-something, so they became MacAuell.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:47 PM on August 4, 2011

My (now ex-) wife and I did MARk and SHErrie MARSHE, which is first names but still worked out okay. Er, namewise it did.
posted by mrmorgan at 8:03 PM on August 4, 2011

I did this. My (new, as of 11 years ago) name is in my profile; it's the first half of my wife's old name and second half of my old name. Both pre-marriage names were long and hard to spell and would have resulted in a hyphenated nightmare. Took less getting used to than I expected but I have to confess it didn't feel like it really settled in until we put it on our son's birth certificate.
posted by range at 1:02 PM on August 5, 2011