Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

What do you name your kid when hyphenation doesn't cut it anymore?

Rear the children with pride and patronymics

Surprised baby says, "You named me what?"
Surprised baby says, "You named me what?"

Dear Hipster:

My wife and I have been talking about having a kid, really just kicking the idea around more than anything else, and I was surprised to find out that she is absolutely, 100% committed to hyphenating our potential future child(ren)’s name(s). I cared not a whit when she didn’t want to take my name at marriage. I even figured it would help dismantle the patriarchy a little bit...I went to a radical feminist college...what do you want? But something about hyphenating the future Anonymous Jr.’s last name just seems like a bad idea. On the other hand, I don’t want that either my wife or I have to “give up” a name. It seems like a no-win situation to me. What’s the cool, hipster way out of this one?

Sponsored
Sponsored

— Anonymous

If there’s one thing to be said for hyphenated names, it’s that they reduce online identity confusion to nil. Of course, that’s a problem unique to the past decade — soon to be a problem of the past, as search engines and social media get better at figuring out exactly who we all are.

On the one hand, it’s very hipster to defy convention, and I applaud your wife’s desire to buck patrilineality, even if just for the sake of doing so. When you think about it, growing up with your dad’s last name is about as mainstream as it gets.

On the other hand, sticking it to the man by hyphenating your potential child’s last name is like embracing alternative music by wearing an R.E.M. T-shirt, by which I mean you’d be totally hip in 1983...not so much today. Dig? Today’s hipsters have moved way beyond mainstream counterculture. Tattoos and piercings haven’t been edgy among hipsters since bros adopted the tribal armband as their flag of war. Riding fixed-gear bicycles instead of mainstream derailleur’d models merits only vague hints of hipstertude.

If you want hipster points, you’ve gotta do better than a hyphenated name.

For some hipsters (the same ones who have adopted ironic Betty Crocker visions of domestic homelife bliss) it’s so mainstream that it actually has a retro appeal. I daresay a significant subset of hipster women think it’s “cute and old fashioned” to take their husband’s names and rear the children with pride and patronymics. Other hipsters procreating in the 2010’s turn increasingly toward scrapping both parents’ names in favor of a combined name, a sort of portmanteau supername that combines elements of both parents’ names. Parents hate it (“What was wrong with our name?”), but it leaves room for glorious creativity comic effect. I would love to be a fly on the wall when John McSweeney and Patty Quackenbush sign the birth certificate for little Clarence McQuackney.

But if you really want to corner the market on being over it in regards to convention, consider an ironically long name in the tradition of the Spanish gentry. Did you know Pablo Picasso’s full name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso? All the world’s conventions are, after all, purely arbitrary, so why not point that out with something so maddeningly cumbersome that nobody could possibly take you seriously?

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Mid-range fleet scoring bluefin limits off Ensenada

Rockfish to open at all depths April 1st (no foolin’)
Next Article

Taco Taco Poway still has 99-cent fish tacos

Tacotopia prizewinner is well known among Powegians
Surprised baby says, "You named me what?"
Surprised baby says, "You named me what?"

Dear Hipster:

My wife and I have been talking about having a kid, really just kicking the idea around more than anything else, and I was surprised to find out that she is absolutely, 100% committed to hyphenating our potential future child(ren)’s name(s). I cared not a whit when she didn’t want to take my name at marriage. I even figured it would help dismantle the patriarchy a little bit...I went to a radical feminist college...what do you want? But something about hyphenating the future Anonymous Jr.’s last name just seems like a bad idea. On the other hand, I don’t want that either my wife or I have to “give up” a name. It seems like a no-win situation to me. What’s the cool, hipster way out of this one?

Sponsored
Sponsored

— Anonymous

If there’s one thing to be said for hyphenated names, it’s that they reduce online identity confusion to nil. Of course, that’s a problem unique to the past decade — soon to be a problem of the past, as search engines and social media get better at figuring out exactly who we all are.

On the one hand, it’s very hipster to defy convention, and I applaud your wife’s desire to buck patrilineality, even if just for the sake of doing so. When you think about it, growing up with your dad’s last name is about as mainstream as it gets.

On the other hand, sticking it to the man by hyphenating your potential child’s last name is like embracing alternative music by wearing an R.E.M. T-shirt, by which I mean you’d be totally hip in 1983...not so much today. Dig? Today’s hipsters have moved way beyond mainstream counterculture. Tattoos and piercings haven’t been edgy among hipsters since bros adopted the tribal armband as their flag of war. Riding fixed-gear bicycles instead of mainstream derailleur’d models merits only vague hints of hipstertude.

If you want hipster points, you’ve gotta do better than a hyphenated name.

For some hipsters (the same ones who have adopted ironic Betty Crocker visions of domestic homelife bliss) it’s so mainstream that it actually has a retro appeal. I daresay a significant subset of hipster women think it’s “cute and old fashioned” to take their husband’s names and rear the children with pride and patronymics. Other hipsters procreating in the 2010’s turn increasingly toward scrapping both parents’ names in favor of a combined name, a sort of portmanteau supername that combines elements of both parents’ names. Parents hate it (“What was wrong with our name?”), but it leaves room for glorious creativity comic effect. I would love to be a fly on the wall when John McSweeney and Patty Quackenbush sign the birth certificate for little Clarence McQuackney.

But if you really want to corner the market on being over it in regards to convention, consider an ironically long name in the tradition of the Spanish gentry. Did you know Pablo Picasso’s full name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso? All the world’s conventions are, after all, purely arbitrary, so why not point that out with something so maddeningly cumbersome that nobody could possibly take you seriously?

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Taco Taco Poway still has 99-cent fish tacos

Tacotopia prizewinner is well known among Powegians
Next Article

Coyote tracks in frail San Diego avocado grove

Second place winner in Reader neighborhood writing contest
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.