hyphenated

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hyphenate

An "hyphenated" person has two or more surnames because their parents come from different cultures or have names that don't fit together perfectly.

Hyphenated last names are really common now. You might know someone who's named Rodriguez-Sanchez or Lee-Jones. This happens when a couple gets married and they want to keep both of their family names, so they put them together with a hyphen in between. It used to be more unusual to see this, but these days it's really not a big deal at all. In fact, some people even choose to give their kids hyphenated last names as a way to honor both sides of the family.

How common is "hyphenated"?

Word hyphenated is considered rare in modern English.
It has a balanced usage among all categories: speech, fiction, newspapers and academic texts.

Definitions

verb

To break a word at the end of a line according to the hyphenation rules by adding a hyphen on the end of the line.
To join words or syllables with a hyphen.

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adjective

Written with a hyphen.
Example: Some dictionaries list hyphenated words as though they contained no punctuation.
Of a person, considered to have more than one nationality or ethnicity (such as French-Canadian, Afro-Argentine, etc.).

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Real examples of "hyphenated" in context

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions

Interview

Why is Nicolai Costa-Waldau's name hyphenated? Well, my parents divorced. I wanted to have both my mom's and my dad's last name. So I hyphenated it.

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