HIVED OFF HYPHENS
Damien McCrystal on why
double-barrelled names are no longer good for business
IT IS ALWAYS a dicey business identify- ing a trend, but I think that the double- barrelled name is facing relegation, at least among its traditional users. In recent months two of my friends have taken the decision to lose a barrel, despite their being of good stock and people who a gen- eration ago would have regarded their monikers as door-openers. The double- barrel did not exist much before the indus- trial revolution, but as the wealth of aristocrats declined in the transformed world and new industrial fortunes sprang up, there was extensive marriage between the two. Naturally, a self-made man want- ed to inunortalise his own name, but not to lose the cachet of the nobby family name his offspring had married, or bought, into. Hence the sudden social importance of the hyphen.
My friend Rupert Gordon-Walker, nephew of the irritating former Labour foreign secretary Patrick, has to all intents and purposes lost his Gordon. Another friend, James Wellesley-Wesley, a descen- dant of Wellington who I always thought bore his name very proudly, will shortly make the great leap. They both work in the City, but the phenomenon is not con- fined to the Square Mile. Richard Compton-Miller, 'Daisy' of Pri- vate Eye fame, is now bylined Compton Miller. John Ungoed-Thomas has dropped his Thomas (working in newspapers, it would have been unwise to drop his Ungoed). John Major, our former prime minister, is in the strange and esoteric situation of Ballingaffecteded a double-barrel, Major- and then pseudo-disaffected it. Hillary Rodham Clinton has dropped her Rodham as a gesture of solidarity with her husband and cap-doffing to the simple classes (Rodham was also rather too tempting a pun to wave before critics of her husband's bedside manner). There is a Young salesman working for a broker of electricity units called Charles O'Connor- Fenton, who has dropped his O'Connor. The Arctic explorer Sir Ranulph Twisle- ton-Wykeham-Fiennes now relies on the last of his three surnames, as does his dis- tant cousin, the actor Ralph Fiennes. The Duke of Buccleuch's family name, Mon- tagu Douglas Scott, has been shortened to Scott in everyday usage.
All these people operate in spheres where others have an opportunity to judge them before they have met them. In the City, now swarming with foreign bankers who regard our old families as tourist attractions rather than business partners, the reasons for dropping half a name are mainly commercial. One friend who has to deal regularly with American and Euro- pean bankers and businessmen and has now forgone one barrel, tells me, 'I do not want to be a point of amusement for any- one. People with titles and double-bar- relled names have a life that is prejudged for them. The City is a brutally meritocrat- ic place, to the extent that if I had a title I would not use it. The only people who care about such things these days are women in villages around the country who organise fetes. If you have a double-barrelled name there is far too much baggage which pre- cedes you through the door, too much of a statement.'
George Pascoe Watson had been at the Sun for three years when it dawned on him that he was frequently not being credited for articles. One night he had written a piece which had to carry his name and Kelvin MacKenzie stormed up saying, `Your name's too fackin' long and keeps bustin' the column' — which in the lan- guage of publishing meant that it was too long to fit across one column width. So he decided to be known thereafter as Pascoe Watson.
`When I was in Washington a couple of months ago I filed a story and then phoned the paper, using my full name, to see if it was going to be the splash,' said George. 'I spoke to a temp on the newsdesk who said `Oh no - it's a trendy vicar.' no, the splash was being done by someone called Pascoe. It doesn't bother me, funnily enough. The name is about 200 years old but we are middle-class, not upper. I find that it does create an element of pigeon- holing. It was all right when I was at public school, but when the family ran out of money and I went to the local comprehen- sive, it caused problems.'
So, it is not fashionable to appear an upper-class twit. This is not something new. It happened in the socialist 1950s out of idealism and in the confrontational 1970s out of fear. This time, it seems to be driven by pure commercial realism. That is proba- bly why its first major manifestations are in finance and the media, where first impres- sions make and break deals and careers. It has not yet spread to the shires. One old double-barrelled Yorkshire family with whom I was discussing the subject regarded it as perfectly deplorable that people would be willing to tamper with their names for such cynical reasons, although it had not occurred to them that their name came into existence for equally pragmatic rea- sons. Yet at the same time, there is a new breed of double-barrel, or perhaps two new breeds. Increasingly, one sees hyphens cropping up in the credits of Hollywood movies. Most of these are owned by wardrobe girls and publicity consultants, and there is usually a vaguely Celtic-sound- ing name followed by one of those bastard names which exist only in America, having been invented by immigration officials no more than 120 years ago.
More dominant is the feminist double- barrel. In the endless quest for female self- assertiveness, women are refusing to relinquish their maiden names when they marry. An early proponent of this was the aforementioned Hillary Rodham Clinton. Ditto Chris Evert Lloyd. My colleague Paul Murphy's wife insists on calling herself Kate Murphy Johnson, and their three chil- dren will labour under both names. Annie Ross Jones, an occupational health adviser at the BBC, is married to Mark Jones, the editor of British Airways' High Life maga- zine, and says, 'I certainly didn't want to lose my maiden name. If we have have any children they will be called Ross Jones, too. In fact, at one stage Mark was going to change his name but he never did. I don't know why.'
Perhaps the lesson, if there is one, from all this is that the double-barrelled name is created by dramatic change in certain social conditions. The hybrid names that sprang from the industrial revolution are no longer necessary because those families which have remained do not need to impress or remind their contemporaries in the way that they once did. But as women take an increasingly dominant role in today's society, they are demanding full credit.
Damien McOystal writes for Sunday Busi- ness.
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