GAME OF DOUBLES
Why so many sports stars are giving it both barrels
It WAS the night of the double barrels and Liverpool’s matchwinner was only a part of the story.
trent Alexander- Arnold, teenage goalscorer against Hoffenheim, was one of nine players with double-barrelled names in action on tuesday evening, with no fewer than three of them starting in the Chelsea side who lost in the Checkatrade trophy at Plymouth.
there were 41 double-barrelled players in the top four English leagues’ weekend squads, with two becoming exchangeable when Recco Hackett-Fairchild replaced tarique Fosu-Henry at Charlton. Four double-barrelled names were in the London side’s squad to face Plymouth, who had one.
It’s been the summer when toby Roland- Jones became the first IN 1901, use of doublebarrelled surnames was 1 in 50,000 in the UK. Now it’s one in 50, according to genealogy firm Ancestry. So double barrels are 1,000 times more common now than then. cricketer with a double-barrelled surname to play for England since 1935 and we only need consider the starting line-ups from the opening skirmishes of the Premier League season, 25 years ago, to appreciate the changing times since then.
the only player giving it both barrels on that distant weekend was Chris Bart-Williams for Sheffield Wednesday at Everton.
there was a time when doublebarrelled footballers were a source of humour. Just ask Forbes Phillipson-Masters, who played for Southampton in the late 1970s, or Peter Rhoades-Brown, who was at Chelsea around the same time.
Both featured in an item on ‘the poshest footballer of the modern era’ simply. Unfairly so. Forbes became a painter and decorator when he retired, though Rhoades- Brown was well-spoken enough to become stadium announcer at Oxford.
Double-barrelled names now proliferate in sport because of the changing patterns of domestic life in the general population — with more children being born outside marriage or being brought up by an only parent. the wish of married women to keep — and pass down — their surname also features, though in a more subtle and shifting way than is often understood.
Mothers have always played a huge role in players’ lives but the surnames have not always demonstrated it until now. Liverpool’s Alexander-Arnold was known as terence Arnold (taking his trinidadian father’s name) when in the club’s youth ranks but the Alexander was added a few years ago. those who know him well say his mother is clearly a huge influence.
Bart-Williams felt the same about his own mother, who raised him alone. But there is a pattern of stepfathers becoming part of the name too. Shaun WrightPhillips was plain Shaun Phillips before his mother, Sharon, met Ian Wright, who willingly volunteered to take on parental duties. the then teenage star briefly dropped the ‘Wright’ from his double- barrelled surname to stave off unfavourable comparisons with a striker beyond compare. He later restored it.
Charlton’s Jake Forster-Caskey has two former players to be compared with. He is a son of Darren Caskey (ex-Reading) and stepson of Nicky Forster (ex-Brentford.)
there is a huge maternal presence for Ainsley Maitland-Niles, one of a large double-barrelled set at Arsenal, whose mother Jule is his agent.
But the more complicated domestic arrangements do not tell all of the story. Many of the double- barrelled set are a product of a trend — strong in the mid-1990s, precisely when many of the current young football generation were born — for women not to take their husband’s name. ‘the 90s does get talked about as a time when not changing names was popular [among women getting married],’ says Dr Rachel thwaites of Lincoln University’s School of Social Science.
there was also a cultural shift in ‘naming practices’ at that time, she adds.
‘In the limited number of cases where women in my sample had given their children a doublebarrelled name it was about showing both parent identities as part of that child and feeling they deserved equal recognition as that child’s parent even when they didn’t share a name with its father.’
Her own 2013 study found that 75 per cent of women took their husband’s name.
tottenham’s Cameron CarterVickers is a case in point. His father, Howard Carter, was briefly an NBA pro and his mother, Geraldine Vickers, a netball star. Kyle Walker- Peters takes his mother’s Peters and father’s Walker. His double barrel is not an attempt to distinguish himself from former team-mate Kyle Walker. the former Blackpool player Gary taylor-Fletcher was Gary Fletcher until his marriage to Viv taylor in 2004.
the preponderance of women athletes with double-barrelled names — Shelly-Ann FraserPryce, Perri Shakes- Drayton, Katarina Johnson-thompson — carries another explanation.
‘It may be that sportswomen — with an important “brand” as part of their name — may not wish to lose this on marriage,’ Dr thwaites says.
the double–barrelled phenomenon may have its limits. Dr thwaites now sees a move towards changing names when marrying as something women aspire towards again.
‘Younger women in my sample were excited, in the main, about the idea of name changing, just as much as their older counterparts had been,’ she says.
But the double barrels will be with us for a while yet.