Advertising That Your Child Comes From an Upscale, Graduate-School-Educated Home and Therefore Won’t Need Financial Assistance if (When) He or She is Accepted Into Yale.
One of the really annoying (at least to me) fads among late Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, mainly, I suspect, from the Northeast and the Washington, D.C. area, is the hyphenated-last-name thing for their children. As in, say, Alex Seitz-Wald, a Millennial blogger at the Washington Post’s The Plum Line, whose post from this morning, “John Boehner’s Escape Hatch is Closing,” I just read.
I don’t know anything about him; I know it’s a “him,” not a “her,” because I’ve read mentions of one or another of his posts, with references to him as, well, “him.” Or, that is, I wouldn’t know anything about him were it not for the hyphenated last name.
But because of the hyphenated last name, I do—or at least probably do—know quite a bit about him: that his parents have graduate degrees and fast-track careers, probably as doctors, lawyers or the like, and that he grew up in a gentrified city neighborhood or an upscale, probably older, leafy (definitely leafy) suburb somewhere not far from the Atlantic Ocean and not south of D.C., or in a college town. He spent his youth, when not in school, in highly competitive sports leagues (probably soccer) and in look-at-me volunteer programs, maybe overseas during the summer. He had private tutors for math and/or whatever other subject he needed in order to ace the SAT. And he spent his four undergraduate years at a prestigious private college or university, and his junior year (or at least a summer) at a university in China, South America or Europe, graduating with a degree in something and with no (or almost no) college-loan debt.
And eventually, probably when he’s in his early 30s, he’ll marry a Millennial with a wink-nod code name like his: say, Harriet Goldman-Sachs. They’ll have two kids, named, maybe, Gertrude Goldman-Sachs-Seitz-Wald and Leon Goldman-Sachs-Seitz-Wald, respectively. Whose offspring three-plus decades later will be named, maybe, Linda Goldman-Sachs-Seitz-Wald-Neiman-Marcus-Carlyle-Group and John Goldman-Sachs-Seitz-Wald-Neiman-Marcus-Carlyle-Group. Respectively.
The danger here, of course, is that by then all college and graduate-school programs will be online, and more reasonably priced, and therefore the Goldman-Sachs-Seitz-Wald-Neiman-Marcus-Carlyle-Group kids will be saddled with the hyphenated eight-name last names with no particular advantage to it. Other than that the Washington Post, New York Times and other prestigious media outlets will have jobs waiting for them when they graduate with a degree or two or three from Yale Online University.
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UPDATE: Actually, as I just wrote in the Comments thread in response to a comment by reader rjs, Seitz-Wald is a terrific political journalist at Salon, The Nation and ThinkProgress, as well as, now, the Washington Post. (I believe he’s still with the other three.) And really, I don’t know a thing about his background. I just keep wondering what the intended end game is with these hyphenated names. I mean, how many generations can be reflected in a last name before space runs out on the birth certificate? Because it obviously can’t extend beyond another generation, this fad really does strike me as simply code for, “This is someone with upscale, educated, intellectual parents who can pay his or her college expenses.”
Sorry, but it does. It’s today’s version of the British-Isles-last-names-as-first-names code that the Brahmins of the early and mid-20th Century employed.
it would be interesting to see what Mr Alex Seitz-Wald would have to say about your take on his name and resume, beverly…
Let’s do as the Spaniards do, and not get our panties in a twist
It seems more likely that you are speaking of your personal acquaintances than of all people of a younger generation with hyphenated last names.
signed, a person of a younger generation.
@Rjs’s wish is granted: https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/372458603762171906
Pffftt!
Actually, rjs, Seitz-Wald is a terrific political journalist at Salon, The Nation and ThinkProgress, as well, now, the Washington Post. (I believe he’s still with the other three.) And really, I don’t know a thing about his background. I just keep wondering what the intended end game is with these hyphenated names. I mean, how many generations can be reflected in a last name before space runs out on the birth certificate?
Make that, “… as well as, now, at the Washington Post.”
maybe when you get a chance, beverly, you could give us your take on those of us who just post with initials…
At least this didn’t turn out to be a Shirley Temple Black Power joke.
Hi! Another hyphenate here; exactly zero of your assumptions are true for me:
– My wife and I both hyphenated when we got married for weenie feminist reasons.
– Both from blue collar middle-class families in suburban/rural Illinois.
– Met at a state school.
– Tutors? You’ve GOT to be kidding.
– Not worried about my kids; like me, they’ll make your own decision.
So from my vantage point, your assumptions look kinda silly and facile. Sorry, but they do.
Actually, Scott. Since my post concerned children whose parents give them hyphenated names at birth, and since neither your parents, your in-laws, nor you and your wife did that, you’ve buttressed rather than refuted my post.
Rjs, you know the adage, “Be careful what you ask for? You might get it.”? Heed it.
Trust me; you don’t want to know my take on people who people who just post with initials–although I will allow as how I think they’re trying to hide their past as bank robbers.
You’re wrong, Kaleberg. It did.
Beverly,
Actually, I didn’t. First, I’m much closer to Alex S-W’s age than “late baby Boomer, early Gen-X”; in other words, if you met me, you’d likely assume I was the kid *given* the name by the mythical parents you describe, and you’d be wrong. Also, we’re still middle-class, albeit white collar; we live in the Midwest; my kids will almost certainly go to state schools; and so on. I don’t fit your stereotype of either the parents, or the young professional.
So I’m not sure how your point is buttressed in any way, unless your point was “some parents hyphenate their last names and give those names to their kids,” which is true but utterly banal. Rather, your point was “when I see someone of X age with a hyphenated last name, I assume XYZ about them, their parents, and everyone’s situations.” And again: zero of those assumptions are true for me or eg my five-year-old, and I suspect you really have no good reason to believe they’re true generally. Unless as part of laying out your research on hyphenates you also intend to prove that the plural of anecdote is now data.
In short: *let it go*. You’re wrong here, and silly. It’s okay to admit that you were wrong. Even on the Internet!
(Looking back at the headline, even: “graduate school-educated home”? “Won’t need financial aid”? *”Advertising”*?!? Wrong; for both me and the little H-N’s. And also: Jesus. SO silly.)
Look it’s a simple matter of balance a Nation-Salon-ThinkProgress-Washington-Post correspondent with only one last name wouldn’t make sense. Or have you considered the possibility that he is so prolific because he is really a they and Alex Seitz and Alex Wald split the duties.
Finally, I hope you don’t think it too personal and egocentric if I might be imagining you two marrying and naming your son Robert Seitz-Wald-Mann
run
Run
Denis Drew