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Hmmm. I was... inebriated when I wrote that last post.
I've thought long and hard about this very issue.
A common name for a family is a wonderfully unifying factor. Especially I believe, for children. As much as creating a new name for a family when the couple marry, a linking point with cousins and the extended family is lost.
What's in a name? An perceptional increase in unity.
I have a rarish first name. I feel "connected" in a way with others who have the same first name, even though we are not family. We share the perception of what it's like to go under that name however, so there is some commonality.
So for a family, an extended family to all share a name, there is an additional degree of unity created by all possessing the same surname.
The obvious conundrum is that the maternal side is lost.
I've long been a fan of say four or more names though, with the second last name being the mothers maiden name. That way, if a girl marries and loses her fathers name, she keeps her mothers.
Lisa Goldberg Jones marries Roland Green.
She becomes
Lisa Goldberg Green
Their son and daughter are named
Tristian Melvin Jones Green and
Helen Avril Jones Green.
Helen marries Grant Boxworth and becomes
Helen Avril Jones Boxworth.
Tristian marries Judith Juicy and has a son named
Yambert Loxnode Juicy Green.
Helen and Grants kids are named
Fatima Maple Jones Boxworth and
Walter Welter Jones Boxworth.
Fatima has a daughter out of wedlock to Ishmael Hasan al-Haq (As he is Arabic, Ishamael is his family name).
So she names her daughter
Lisa Annalisa Jones Ishmael.
In this way, we can trace the female family tree as easily as we can currently with the male family tree. There are links and unity, while room is there for individualism and creativity.
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