Double-barrelled names in the military?

[Alasdair Hall]

Greetings. This is my first posting, and by the little reading of done so far on these forums you sound a very helpful and friendly bunch :-). I am a New Zealander, but have lived in the UK for the last 20 years. My father was English and left for NZ in 1928 as a fourteen year old military-orphan. Regretfully he lost contact with his family and one of the reasons for me coming here was to see if I could find them. Well the good news is I did. I re-united him with his sister in 1989, they had been lost since waving goodbye to each other 61 years earlier at Southampton Docks!
Where I am now is trying to discover the origins of the family name Bettles-Hall. Can any-one help?
Some of the family use the double-barrelled name, others just use Hall.
The earliest I have is my great-grandfather whose discharge documents from the Royal Marines in1906 has him as Joseph Bettles Hall. However it is vague as to whether the Bettles is a second christian name, or part of the surname. He signs himself J B Hall. I have been told that it was protocol in this period that only officers could use double-barrelled names??
His birthdate is given as 11 June 1866, at Northampton, with his father's name being John, and his mother's Mary. The BMD registers using those details have not found him; either as Hall, or Bettles-Hall. If you search the register for Bettles-Hall, all the hits are his decendants! Any suggestions?

[Geoffers]

Where I am now is trying to discover the origins of the family name Bettles-Hall. Can any-one help?
Some of the family use the double-barrelled name, others just use Hall.
The earliest I have is my great-grandfather whose discharge documents from the Royal Marines in1906 has him as Joseph Bettles Hall. However it is vague as to whether the Bettles is a second christian name, or part of the surname. He signs himself J B Hall. I have been told that it was protocol in this period that only officers could use double-barrelled names??

Names changes usually take place as a result of use by the person/family concerned. Anyone can use a hyphenated name if they wish.

These names often come about because a family with one surname frequently uses another surname as a forename for its family members. This forename can come from one generation earlier, or several - sometimes there is no genealogical connection, it may be the name of a benefactor or employer. In one case I know of a family that now has hyphenated name because of an election! In that case a child was given the forename Balfour as a result of the general election in 1895 and Balfour is now part of the surname.

The use of a hyphen can either be to 'formally' include a name as part of a surname - or just for perceived prestige.

There is an online surname profiler - it plots where names most freqently occur, it isn't much use with common names, but try entering BETTLES and searching on 1881.
http://www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk/default.aspx

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

My married, double-barrelled surname, first appeared on a legal document (marriage certificate) in 1883 ....... for an illegal marriage as it happens, (which should be a non-marriage I suppose! :D)

Frederick GRANT may have tacked the SALMON bit on the end, as someone called SALMON could have been his father. The name was used in the 1891 Census and his 1900 burial record, but with no hyphen.

His son was married in 1901, no hyphen, but the hyphen appeared on the birth certs of the children, first time in 1907 and carried on from there. On advice from my husband, I always sign the lot on legal documents, as he had a spot of bother with his passport one time, as he signs just the Salmon bit.

Most of the family sign in full, but some call themselves Salmon. I got *a look* from my husband on honeymoon, when I made an appointment at the hairdressers in the name of Grant ...... but I was right, as I found out years later, so I got the last |laugh1|