German Court Upholds Law Banning Long Names

A Munich dentist who wanted to combine her last name with that of her husband won’t be able to do so because of a hyphen problem.

The stumbling block is a 1993 law that allows only one hyphen and two last names for married people, the New York Times reports. Germany’s highest constitutional court upheld the law yesterday in the case of the dentist, who wanted to be known as Frieda Rosemarie Thalheim-Kunz-Hallstein.

“Germany is renowned for fighting inflation, but the battle extends beyond money and into the realm of names,” the Times story says. “In a split decision on Tuesday, the German Constitutional Court upheld a ban on married people combining already-hyphenated names, forbidding last names of three parts or more.”