Too late to be Dirk Bogarde?

IN an age where sexual equality is finally gaining acceptance, names are one area where the patriarchal tradition remains. Wives relinquish the surname they were born with upon marriage, sons carry on the family name, and daughters only have it on loan if they also eventually enter into wedlock.

It doesn’t seem fair.

Our younger daughter Sian certainly took umbrage to the social norm even before she married. She enrolled at university as Sian Palma Colaluca-Kilcommons which, while maintaining her mum’s identity and Italian heritage, was a bit of a mouthful.

When she married Andrew Kerr, she incorporated Palma, her second name after her great grandmother, and their children are more neatly double-barrelled as Jeanie Palma-Kerr and Dillon Palma-Kerr.

In their professional lives, both our daughters have retained their maiden name.

Going double-barrelled is, of course, a system that cannot survive past one generation.

I just created my paternal side, going back 200 years, and found I would have been Denis Reeves-Blood-Shaw-LimbCoyne-Cryan-Kilcommons,

and that’s without taking into account my mother’s side, or my wife’s Irish, Flemish and Italian ancestors.

By heck, filling in forms would take forever.

Which is why we have the system that usually chops us down to a single surname for purposes of civic records and family identity, and you can blame the patriarchal society for preserving the male line.

There have been moves to redress the situation even so.

In 2020, the Deed Poll Office said there had been a 30% increase in women wanting to hyphenate their maiden name with their husband’s surname. But that can soon get as unwieldy as mine did.

A new trend is to blend names. A couple called Dawson and Thornley are combining theirs to create the joint name Dawley.

Which is a nice idea, although that, too, will only last one generation before the problem arises again.

Besides, some surnames would be beyond combination, The best I can come up with for mine and my wife’s is Kilco which sounds like a cough sweet.

To be honest, I was never fond of the name I was born with, anyway.

As a teenager I wanted to be either Dirk Bogarde or Ricky Nelson, and I’m sure not everybody is happy with what they are called.

I once worked with a reporter called Darling which was always a source of fun if the News Editor shouted across the News Room: “Can I have a word, Darling?” A simple answer to either changing an unwanted name or a couple creating a new one for themselves and their children, is to do so by deed poll.

The best way is to download deed poll forms from www.gov.uk and enrol your new identity at the Royal Courts of Justice for a cost of £42.44.

That’s not too much to pay to be Dirk Bogarde. Although I think I may have left it a bit late to change mine.

I would have been Denis Reeves-Blood-ShawLimb-Coyne-CryanKilcommons, and that’s without my mother’s side.