German hyphen war reaches European court

From The Independent Online:

Although you can hyphenate your name after marriage, you cannot pass it on to your children. “It makes things too complicated,” said Karin Eichhoff-Cyrus, director of Germany’s language and name enforcers, … . German bureaucrats fear a hyphen pandemic. A child with a double-barrelled name, they point out, could go on to marry someone with a double-barrelled name. Their children would have four linked-up surnames, and the next generation might have eight.

I admire the Iberian Naming Customs as explained by Wikipedia:

In most Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan speaking regions of the world, people have at least two surnames. One is inherited from the father, the other from the mother. Parents pass on to their children the name they inherited from their father.

In most Spanish speaking countries, the father’s surname is written before the mother’s surname, although there are occasional exceptions to this rule. Thus, for instance, Vicente Fox Quesada is Señor Fox (Mr. Fox in English), not Señor Quesada, and “Fox” is not his middle name.

In Portuguese speaking countries, the father’s surname is in most cases after the mother’s surname. In these countries, it is very frequent that children get two surnames from each of their parents, thus having usually the last surname of each of their grandparents.

The traditional naming conventions are now changing as attitudes toward gender equality evolve. In Portugal, since 1977, the child’s last name can come either from the father or from the mother, but the latter is still very uncommon.