Titel: Naming the children
Skrivet av: Ingela Martenius skrivet 2008-01-29, 10:08
Certainly Inger-Maj is actually two names. Only, since we today use a hyphen between the names we think of it as one name, and the relevant authorities (mainly Skatteverket) also regard it as one name. Internationally people don't notice the hyphen and will tend to drop the last part of a double name: Anna-Karin easily becomes Anna. Except in the American South where they stick to the old custom of using both given names: Billy Bob - no hyphen necessary since both names are used as a matter of course.
Like I said, as soon as we dropped the custom of using all given names we had to invent the hyphen to tell people which of our names we would like used together. Today someone named Anne Marie Louise could be called any of those names but put a hyphen in and in Sweden we would immediately realize how the names should be used: Anne-Marie Louise or Anne Marie-Louise. In the old days Anne Marie Louise would have been called all of those names: Anne-Marie-Louise - no hidden second names that are never used.