May's Banal Rant

[Paul Bradley]

> *Why is it that people of finer (?) English heritage often has a double
> second name? Someone once suggested to me that it originates from having
> (or an ancestor having) adopted the name of both one's 'marital' father
> and one's biological father, for reasons of property inheritance, but
> I never believed that one. Just curious.


I believe historically this would not be the case, for obvious reasons of 
reputation.

Today, a few English people take both their mothers and fathers names, 
for example, a friend of mine is William Casson-Smith, of course, not all 
names sound good like this, ie. Paul Bradley-Hemsley, interestingly they 
only sound right if the second name has one less syllable than the first.

        Datacomms Technologies data security
       Paul Bradley, Paul at fatmans.demon.co.uk
  Paul at crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul at cryptography.uk.eu.org    
       Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
      Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85
     "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"