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Originally Posted by TSteven
I know of a few "juniors" who continue to use junior out of respect to their Daddy. Most of these juniors are in situations where he lives in the same town or area where he was reared. Or because of professional or social situations where his Daddy was known by the same people as "John Doe, Senior".
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I know this is the rule, but I know few families that follow it, including my own. (My brother is an IV.) I think a lot of it has to do with the family being well known (locally) and everybody being used to who is Jr., III, IV etc. (I was taught that one
never uses Sr.) It just gets too confusing when people die and then before you know it, the guy whom everyone has always known as IV is Jr.
Then, of course, you have to factor in the guys known as "Trey" or "Tripp" because they're the III. I actually know one man who goes by "IV." It's just too much to change.
Besides, the catalog companies, alumni association databses, etc., would never be able to keep up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by breathesgelatin
Traditionally in common law people could pretty much adopt whatever name they wanted. . . . That idea is nearly dead now and the assumption is that you must file records when you want to change your name for any reason.
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It's not legally dead, although in may be dead in practice. In NC, at least, you can still legally change your name anytime you like just by using a new name. However, don't expect DMV or the Social Security Administration to recognize your new name without a court order, marriage license, divorce decree or the like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nittanyalum
And then there's the hispanic naming conventions where the children take both the father and the mother's surnames.
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And then there's the old Scandinavian tradition, still used in Iceland, where your last name depends on your father's first name, and a family of four can have four different last names. Say dad's name is Eric -- his son, Leif, is Leif Ericsson (Eric's son), and his daughter, we'll call her Katrín, is Katrín Ericsdóttir (Eric's daughter). Meanwhile, Helga -- Eric's wife and the mother of Leif and Katrín -- is the daughter of a man named Jón, so her last name is Jónsdóttir. Oh, and Eric's dad's first name was Stefán, so his name is Eric Stefánsson.
So, in one family, you have Eric Stefánsson (husband) and Helga Jónsdóttir (wife) and their kids: Leif Ericsson and Katrín Ericsdóttir.
Just to get this back a little to topic, I understand that there is some trend in Iceland -- sometimes because the father is out of the picture and sometimes as a social statement -- to use the mother's name as the basis for the last name. So, say, Eric abandoned his family, the kids might choose to go by Leif Helguson and Katrín Helgusdóttir.
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