When @DanielRoyGreenfeld and I got married, I took the "Greenfeld" part of his name, and he took the "Roy" part of my name.
We thought it was a nice gesture showing the world that he belongs to me and I belong to him. It seemed like a kind, modern thing to do for each other as a 21st-century couple willing to start new traditions. It also allowed us to carry on both of our last names to the next generation. Our daughter's last name is the same as ours, "Roy Greenfeld".
Our original choice of Roy Greenfeld as the spelling has led to confusion:
- We get emails saying "Hi Roy" or "Hi Audrey and Roy" on a daily basis.
- Our mail sometimes gets filed under G for Greenfeld, and other times under R for Roy.
As developers, we know that if we don't fix this bug now, it'll be a lot worse later. Technical debt accumulates. In this case it's even getting passed on to our cute little one 🍼
Our Current Iteration
Our quest for a more system-friendly name has led to a fork in the road. Here are the two options we're waffling on:
Option A: Roy-Greenfeld (Traditional but Buggy)
Hyphenating seemed like the most common solution, so we tried it. The next day we waited at the hardware store for half an hour while they couldn't find our name in their system, just 10 minutes after they had entered it into their system.
Hyphens get turned into spaces in some systems, and removed from names in other systems.
Running into a name bug within a day of the change from "Roy Greenfeld" to "Roy-Greenfeld" meant we still had work to do.
Option B: RoyGreenfeld (The PascalCase Version)
With this option, we remove the hyphen and smash the names together, PascalCase-style.
It feels funny, but it seems like the natural next step.
You never know the results until they're deployed to production, so I've been changing my online profiles everywhere to "RoyGreenfeld" to see what happens.
Future Possibilities
We'll probably run into bugs and have to iterate further. Here are possible resolutions:
royGreenfeld (The camelCase Version)
This may reduce the chance of people mistakenly addressing Daniel as "Roy" in emails. The lowercase "roy" means it's less likely to be interpreted as a first name.
A lot of software insists on capitalizing the first letter of the surname, though.
Roygreenfeld (Like a Standard Surname)
Most last names in the United States have a capital letter followed by lowercase letters, so systems are good at handling that.
It doesn't solve the "feld" part getting mistyped as "field" though.
Roygreenfield (Easier to Spell but Longer)
Sure, it may be easier to spell, but it's now longer and likely to get truncated. 13 characters is a lot. Systems often truncate last names at 12 characters. Paper forms with those little lines between each character only have so much space.
Roygreen (Simpler but Still Confusing)
This version probably minimizes system errors. But it's prone to human error because it's not a common last name. It sounds like some guy named "Roy Green" rather than a surname.
Groynfeld (More Surnamey but Awkward)
To the American ear, this version sounds more like a surname, reducing human error. But it's embarrassing to say, so it's not a realistic option. And it's hard to spell. Let's just say it would probably be misspelled "Groinfeld" and be awkward.
Key Takeaways
- Systems are prone to programmer and human error.
- When you discover technical debt, iterate early and fast.
- Naming is hard.
- Naming yourself, your spouse, and your baby is even harder.
Your Challenge
Help us decide what to adopt as our surname, in a way that minimizes errors while preserving our family names as much as possible.
Seriously, @DanielRoyGreenfeld and I'll be grateful for any anecdotes you share in the comments below.
I'm particularly interested in hearing from anyone who decided on a combined name with their spouse.
Latest comments (51)
I have a strong feeling that in John's particular case it was not only the hyphen that was the issue... :D
kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehood...
Great points here, The Furious Ape. I totally agree on systems badly needing an update. It's complex enough of a problem that we need a common spec telling developers how to implement such an update.
A quick update: @danielfeldroy and I have changed our last names to Feldroy on DEV. We also updated our company org name.
We're testing it here on DEV first to see how it feels before we deploy the change to our GitHub, Twitter, and other online profiles. Then after we see how that goes, we may gain the courage to move roygreenfeld.com to feldroy.com. So yeah, you heard it here first and were a part of making this change in our lives 💗
Just to commiserate with you, my daughter is originally from another country which uses 2 last names as common practice. This is too confusing for most American systems (human and computer). It seems the first last name is usually assumed to be a 2nd middle name. And she is usually referred to by the last last name. Even though historically the first last name is considered the primary one.
Probably obvious to you already, but I think there is additional confusion in your particular case because Roy is a common American first name. So, Roy Greenfeld sounds like its own first/last name combo. And it looks like an accidental name nested in another name. I had a moment of confusion myself when I saw your post.
I like the other suggestions of "Greenroy" "Feldroy" "Royfeld". On cursory lookup, Roy means "king" and Greenfeld means "green field". So you could also go with something like Kingfield. :)
Greenfeldroy sounds a lot closer to a surname, moves you up the ABC list, and was not even mentioned in your article. As a side note, I really like the name; it sounds Welsh or Irish.
I guess one famous example that comes to mind is Jennifer Mulhern Granholm and her husband Daniel Granholm Mulhern, the former governor and former first gentleman of Michigan, respectively.
This is a great post. Now we just all have to remember that the bug is not the name being used, but the systems that cannot handle expected input in name fields.
If someone is changing their name, why would it ever be anything but Inigo Montoya.
Think of all the masterful introductions you'd have the rest of your life.
I recommend against camelCase for family names.
A few years ago, on the first day of class, I'm calling roll.
...Davis, Edwards, Holdridge...
One student starts to look nervous.
...Vinton, Wendt, Wilson...
He's dancing in his seat.
...Zrust, and finally
deMayo
He relaxes.
And that is the day I explained the ASCII table to freshmen on their first day of college.
Great story! Okay, royGreenfeld is ruled out.
I came to suggest Greenroy (first choice) and Royfeld. I see those have already both been suggested, so just count this as my additional vote for either of those options!
Seinfeld. It still has the "feld" in it.
Really great, novel read!
I look forward to family photos with Placeholder Greeneryfold.
I've never understood this practice of "taking the name" of your spouse.
In the most common tradition, the wife's last name just changes - it always seemed to me like she becomes "property" of the husband. Relic of a patriarchal society.
Your approach is far more advanced and respectful, but facing all those doubts and questions is a little silly IMO 😅
So my suggestion would be: just keep your original last names. It's your love that will show that you're married 😊
Many countries do that and they don't feel incapacitated just because they don't get to say "the Roys" or "the Greenfelds" when referring to a family.
Of course that would be too late for you folks. But I honestly don't know what to suggest.
By the way, in Spain the children get two last names by default 😉 It's still a little man-centric (the father's first surname comes first and that's the one that's inherited), but shows that there's plenty of traditions to get inspiration from.
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