Quote:
Originally Posted by stumped
I thought a surname had to be a single word (the clue being that we say surname not surnames)
So my surname could be Smith. or Jones, or Smith-Jones but not "Smith Jones".
(Sticking to English names here, else it gets complicated )
But no such actual rule exists ?
Glad I don't have to code the author to author sort rule  |
Quite a few surnames are multiple word though there a more correct terms such as double surname or hyphentated surname. Then you have the particle such as de, da, von, van etc. as part of a surname -- Leonardo da Vinci as an example.
If you want real fun, consider one poor child locally whose parents had hyphenated surnames and passed them on to their child. Joyeux Alexandrina Julianna Mulberry-McCullough-Letterman-Stauffenbacher (not the real name but I matched the letter counts) whose last name made the Ministry of Education's student information system unhappy. It made the German decision to forbid surnames with more than two components seem reasonable.