• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Festively-Named Somerset Couple Declare Their Surname Is Real

AnonyJ

Captainess Sensible
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Messages
2,024
Location
Having-a-nice-cup-of-tea-and-a-sit-down-shire
From one of our local news sources - a Mr & Mrs White-Christmas of Crewkerne, Somerset have declared to the media that their surname is real, and not a prank or joke

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/mr-mrs-white-christmas-say-8974086

"Mr and Mrs White-Christmas say they love their seasonal name despite strangers thinking it is "fake". Kieran White, 23, and Tilly Christmas, 24, tied the knot in November 2020 and became the UK's first Mr and Mrs White-Christmas.

Now after celebrating three years of marriage they say the last name is still "special" and "a laugh". The couple, who live in Crewkerne, Somerset, are asked about their surname daily but say it hasn't got "annoying yet".

Kieran, a designer, said: "It's a laugh. We had a pizza takeaway cancel on us once - they thought it was a fake name.

"It's not got annoying yet. Everyone loves it. It's never a negative thing."
"

0_were-mr-and-mrs-1110740.jpg

(photo credit : Somerset Live)
 
From one of our local news sources - a Mr & Mrs White-Christmas of Crewkerne, Somerset have declared to the media that their surname is real, and not a prank or joke

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/mr-mrs-white-christmas-say-8974086

"Mr and Mrs White-Christmas say they love their seasonal name despite strangers thinking it is "fake". Kieran White, 23, and Tilly Christmas, 24, tied the knot in November 2020 and became the UK's first Mr and Mrs White-Christmas.

Now after celebrating three years of marriage they say the last name is still "special" and "a laugh". The couple, who live in Crewkerne, Somerset, are asked about their surname daily but say it hasn't got "annoying yet".

Kieran, a designer, said: "It's a laugh. We had a pizza takeaway cancel on us once - they thought it was a fake name.

"It's not got annoying yet. Everyone loves it. It's never a negative thing."
"

0_were-mr-and-mrs-1110740.jpg

(photo credit : Somerset Live)
I used to live in Crewkerne.

Yep, that's all, I really did come over here just to say that.
 
I did know a Chris. Trees!

I assume the parents were aware, when they named him, cheerfully.

Unlike the unfortunate Luke Walmsley, who must, I think, have been named subliminally. :thought:

Aarons should be taunted that their parents were lazy sods. They looked in the book, said "name the f..... Aaron," and decamped to the pub!

Some deep truths in this. :crazy:
 
I feel I should definitively know the answer to this troubled question already, courtesy of many years of this kind of double-barrelled amalganomeny, but I do not.

If there beist happy issue from this union of Miss White & Mr Christmas (to create plural baby White-Christmases); and they then individually in adult life marry some other nominatively-serendipitous persons such as a nice young Merry-Bright or perhaps a pleasantly-eligible Sleigh-Bell: does their potential union generate forth a subsequent little White-Christmas-Merry-Bright, or even some Sleigh-Bell-Christmas-Whites?

TLDR: if this name's really real, how does it and any other modern-day surname mashups work with when their named kids marry other mashup-name (or even singularly-surnamed) adults?

Are there strict underlying (but simple) rules on how this works?

Or does my lack of awareness of even a single example instance of this ever actually happening act as a hint that this is just a faddy nothingburger, and future professional genealogists do not yet need to worry for their sanities?

ps a future "Mr&Mr Cohen-Hussain-White-Christmas" would take up a lot of written space upon an invitation card, but does have a certain cyberpunk fan fiction inevitability about it....
 
Last edited:
One well-known triple-barrelled name is Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, as in the actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes. There are loads of them in that family, such as Ranulf and Gerry ; surnames don't really get much longer.

But there aren't really any rules in the UK, unlike, for instance, Spain, where the rules for naming are quite strict and baroque. The Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes are just following a family tradition, and could end it whenever they like. See for instance Hero Beauregard Faulkner Fiennes Tiffin, who played Lord Voldemort as a child in the Harry Potter franchise. He is not a 'Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes-Tiffin', because that would be silly.
 
Last edited:
Prince Philip had to carry a spare pen when he needed to sign anything with his full name of Philippos Andreou of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderberg-Glücksburg, Prince of Greece and Denmark.
No wonder he became known as Phil the Greek!
 
Prince Philip had to carry a spare pen when he needed to sign anything with his full name of Philippos Andreou of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderberg-Glücksburg, Prince of Greece and Denmark.
No wonder he became known as Phil the Greek!
The world is a poorer place since we lost the sarcastic old curmudgeon.
 
Yes.

And I utterly refuse to be like someone I knew, who was bigoted against `posh` folk.

Like ones with double barreled names.

Thats how you recognise posh folk (according to them)
Being not at all posh, I was highly surprised when I ended up with a) a wife and b) a business partner with connections to the posh. The higher echelons of the posh, in fact.

Yes, they have had a head start in life. Yes, they don't really understand people who haven't had that head start. but putting that aside there is the same mix of good people, psychopaths, snobs and out and out criminals as in the other layers of society,

Oh, OK maybe they have more psychopaths, but they are able to hide it better because lower class psychopaths have fewer and more obvious ways of hurting people.

And (sorry folks) I was surprised to discover fox hunting is very enjoyable, not that I ever saw a fox actually caught. I know no more about riding a horse than I do about building a nuclear bomb. But having a (real) Jeep I did do some hunt following and really, it's not what people think. I could write a substantial article on what the fox hunting folk thought of me with my jeans and leather jacket and cockney accent, but looking on them just with curiosity and not outright condemnation. Especially given my business partner who dragged me along was brother to a Tory MP.
 
I've not lived there for more than 35 years. I used to work at Cronite down on the Industrial Estate - no idea if it's even still going!
Cronite is still there and still has a foundry.

Metal working firm pleads guilty to failing health and safety standards for  workers | Chard & Ilminster News


Part of the town centre that used to have industrial buildings is now redeveloped into a library and 2 medium supermarkets - so the town survives and thrives without the out-of-town versions that blight so many smaller towns.

It's one of the few places I could bear to live in, if I became a bit more disabled or more bits drop off and I need to live in a place with GPs, hospital etc.,
 
Further to my post about 'the posh' I've just been reminded on another forum that you don't necessarily have to be posh to be an arrogant gobsh*te .
 
Further to my post about 'the posh' I've just been reminded on another forum that you don't necessarily have to be posh to be an arrogant gobsh*te .
Arrogant and ignorant gobsh***s seem to gravitate to some forums. User names often reflect their personalities.

I'm assuming that the origins of Christmas as a surname was that someone was born at that time of year.
 
Being not at all posh, I was highly surprised when I ended up with a) a wife and b) a business partner with connections to the posh. The higher echelons of the posh, in fact.

Yes, they have had a head start in life. Yes, they don't really understand people who haven't had that head start. but putting that aside there is the same mix of good people, psychopaths, snobs and out and out criminals as in the other layers of society,

Oh, OK maybe they have more psychopaths, but they are able to hide it better because lower class psychopaths have fewer and more obvious ways of hurting people.

And (sorry folks) I was surprised to discover fox hunting is very enjoyable, not that I ever saw a fox actually caught. I know no more about riding a horse than I do about building a nuclear bomb. But having a (real) Jeep I did do some hunt following and really, it's not what people think. I could write a substantial article on what the fox hunting folk thought of me with my jeans and leather jacket and cockney accent, but looking on them just with curiosity and not outright condemnation. Especially given my business partner who dragged me along was brother to a Tory MP.
I never imagined you having a cockney accent for some reason.
 
I never imagined you having a cockney accent for some reason.
Actually I flatter myself. It's not a true Cockney accent although here 'up norf' people assume it is. It's old school sarf essex as created by those who moved out of the East End in the period from the 1880's to the 1950's. But equally it's not that appalling BBC fostered fake cockney Estuary accent.

My mam was born in Whitechapel, as was my grandad and grandma. (Although the surname was France, so maybe there are other influences)

Dad was a scouser. But his parents were Franco-swiss and Italian. So I'm a mongrel. And proud of it.
 
agreed. My decision not to do it anymore is an ethical one, not to do with the joy of it. And I was blooded.
it's very difficult. I've been living out here in the (semi)wild for 25 years now. There are massive amounts of carnivorous predators, mainly avian. Buzzards, Crows Ravens, Magpies. but only foxes seem to kill more then they eat which is why farmers and smallholders hate them. People would hate the foxes less if they only took one chicken instead of wiping out the whole pen -and yes, I have seen this.

Against which, foxes are gorgeous looking creatures and I would never want to see them wiped out. So it is a question of how best to manage the population.
 
I certainly used to know someone with the surname Christmas. And White is a quite common surname. So it doesn't defy logic that at some point a Christmas married a White.
Aye, I'm related to a family of Christmases. I don't at all find it unlikely that a White and a Christmas should marry. That they chose to hyphenate their names to be White-Christmas is fairly mundane, but in the same situation, I couldn't have resisted doing so.
 
it's very difficult. I've been living out here in the (semi)wild for 25 years now. There are massive amounts of carnivorous predators, mainly avian. Buzzards, Crows Ravens, Magpies. but only foxes seem to kill more then they eat which is why farmers and smallholders hate them. People would hate the foxes less if they only took one chicken instead of wiping out the whole pen -and yes, I have seen this.

Against which, foxes are gorgeous looking creatures and I would never want to see them wiped out. So it is a question of how best to manage the population.
My grandfather was a farmer in the poverty stricken 30's and what was then a rural area was inundated by foxes who would kill everything in their pens. His solution was to get a large flock of very large rowdy geese who would warn him of any intruder and foxes appeared to be scared of the noise and the presence of these large birds. Apparently solved the problem entirely.
(yes I know Max thread drift)
 
One well-known triple-barrelled name is Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, as in the actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes. There are loads of them in that family, such as Ranulf and Gerry ; surnames don't really get much longer.
I didn't think so either but Wikipedia lists these:
There are even a few "quadruple-barrelled" surnames (e.g. Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, Cameron-Ramsay-Fairfax-Lucy, and Stirling-Home-Drummond-Moray). The surname of the extinct family of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos was the quintuple-barrelled Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sie
A double barrelled surname used to denote a particular branch of a prestigious family, or the union between two people who were last in their line and didn't want it to die out.

My own son uses a double barrelled surname because his wife had no brothers and wanted to preserve her family's Polish name. However, I think the novelty is wearing off in the face of repeatedly having to spell it and explain it in every encounter with officialdom.

The recent trend is for double barrelled names where a mother has kids by one or more partners who do not live with them.

It is certainly no longer a sign of being posh.

Indeed, there are many professional footballers with double barrelled names.

As for the White-Christmases, it seems to be a "mostly harmless" bit of attention seeking.

At school, aged about 12, I convinced a gullible friend that I was Michael Dennis Charles William Frederick George Henry Sebastian Peter Jock Hamish Smith-McTurtle-Wilkinson. The fact I remember the sequence after nearly 50 years is remarkable when I can seldom find my glasses or keys.
 
Back
Top