It feels like for the past couple of years every other fan fic has decided to stop calling him Harry Potter and instead change it to Harry Potter-Black, Harry Black-Potter-Peverell, etc. I've even seen both Lily Potter instead called Lily Evans-Potter and Hermione Weasley become Hermione Granger-Weasley a few times. Is it some weird Harry Potter fan fiction-only cultural change? I can't figure out if it's memetic for the HP fan fic community or if it's a wider real life trend to switch to the Spanish way of adopting names.

It's just strange the sheer amount of fics that are following the new naming pattern. You'd almost think there's a newsletter for this sort of thing.

 

People think it looks cool. That's about it.

 

I personally love Harry James Potter-Black-Peverell-Gryffindor-Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw-Syltherin.

It just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?

 

I just imagine someone screaming louder and louder each word they are forced to say in this name alone.

 

The only person I know with a name that long (>5) is a Mexican. I didn't know it was a sign of nobility according to the fics.

 

Those fics are the best examples of pureblood-muggleborn equality, and how wrong and evil Voldemort is in considering muggleborns inferior.

 

Certain types consider(ed) it to be a bit of a status symbol in the UK; a couple of upper-class families had upwards of quadruple-barrelled surnames.

So yeah, pretty much what Aekiel said. Plus the whole Pure-blood nobility thing... except Justin Finch-Fletchley, but he was pegged for Eton, so his parents might've been about that life.

Rich Muggles do it better anyway. I mean, de Mimsy-Porpington? Really Nick?

 

In the States it's kind of a liberal/feminist thing.

 

There are certain places in India which do have this custom. I once dated a girl, whose full name, I kid you not, was 14 different words. Around 5 or so is pretty common in some places. Hermione Weasley-Granger is kinda stupid, though. As is that entire Harry Potter-etc stuff. I'm assuming it's simply to make him seem important.

 

Questions that don't deserve their own thread?

 

In the case of Harry ending up with a hyphenated name, it's to show all the big and important family lines of which he is now the head/sole heir.

In other words, to make him more important than everyone else.

In Hermione's case (e.g. Hermione Granger-Weasley), it's the author either trying to show that Hermione is making an obvious effort to show that, even though she is a witch and is married to a pureblood wizard, her muggle family name is just as important as her new wizard one: In other words, it's an anti-discrimination, muggle equality thing.

Or, it's the author showing that Hermione is a strong, liberated, modern, (feminist,) woman, who feels that her own surname is just as important as her husband's, and therefore she goes by both (and, if her female descendants feel the same way, before long, their surnames will be a list that is too long to memorize, much less recite on a regular basis or write on a check).

Also, there's the possibility it's both the muggle equality thing and the feminist thing.

A smattering of hyphenated names in fanfic, in the case of original characters, are for the same reason as Harry (to show how wealthy, high class, and old their family is).

The canon character Justin Finch-Fletchley has a hyphenated surname, and mentions that (before getting his Hogwarts letter) he was supposed to be attending Eton: Just the kind of thing you might expect from a wealthy, 'upper-crust-y,' type family.

(In 2014/2015, it cost approximately 34,434 pounds sterling to send a child to a year of school at Eton, or nearly 44,672 dollars, U.S., at today's exchange rate.)

Had he gone ahead to Eton, instead of Hogwarts, he wouldn't have been the first fictional character to attend that school, either. Even Peter Pan's Captain Hook attended Eton, FFS!

Anyway, I'm digressing. Hyphenated surnames (at least in the world of fiction - especially fan fiction) generally mean old families with old wealth, storied histories (possibly full of military service), potential noble/royal acquaintances/relatives, and the political power that follows on the heels of such things.

As I understand it, that thread is for canon questions that can be answered with canon information.

And, even then, it's a dangerous place...

 

I thought the children are supposed ro inherit other names to stop old lines from dying out?

So instead of Potter-Bones, his first kid would be Potter while the second will be Bones if they like?

Or is that Medieval/ fiction?

 

Don't you think that if that was the case, many of the old families would not have died out? For instance, there would be actual people with the surname Slytherin and Peverell still alive.

 

I'm talking about rl, not HP, despite my example.

 

Hyphenated names are rather normal here. It simply is a naming convention people use(d) to keep their maiden name when marrying.

 

Brazilians can have long names too. Just picking Neymar for example. Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior.

 

Depends on the system of inheritance. If you have a gavelkind system where each of the sons/children inherits a portion of their father's estate, then the names associated with his different titles will split between the children. In primogeniture, on the other hand, gives all the titles to the one person and they just stack up. By custom you generally only refer to someone by their most distinguished title though.

Primogeniture is much more common, but gavelkind has Germanic associations. Given that Runes lasted for much longer in the magical world than they did in the Muggle world, it's possible other Germanic cultural artifacts survived longer too.

 

In Sweden, it's mostly used to maintain a superficial connection to part of your family, the your maiden/male equivalent name or mayhaps children from an earlier marriage. It's not all that common though.

In fanfiction it feels like the indie cliché when Harry inherits a lot of titles, mountains of gold and goes on to be a political powerhouse at age 11. As my comment illustrates, I don't care much for the phenomena.