It is not just celebrities designing their own names — newlyweds and parents are also bucking tradition to craft new surnames for themselves and their children.
The fringe movement breaks with mainstream last name conventions that reflect only paternal lineage while also rejecting the more common practice of hyphenating surnames.
Alysha Herrmann and husband Nic Tubb decided against passing on either of their surnames when daughter Amaya was born and instead gave her the surname Orana — chosen for its sound and meaning.
"Orana means welcome according to the baby books, so it was an emotional response," Ms Herrmann said.
"We liked how it felt and what that said and how it sounded with her [first] name."
Ms Herrmann has a son from a previous relationship who carried his biological father's surname so the four members of her family all have different last names.
"I'm from a traditional western family where everyone got Dad's last name so when my son was born I didn't even think about it, I didn't question it," Ms Herrmann said.
Ms Herrmann believed more people were starting to think more about naming rights when they married or had children.
"I'm meeting more people having those discussions now … when it came up in our antenatal classes [five years ago] people didn't even know it was a possibility, they hadn't considered it because they didn't know they were allowed to [create a new surname]," Ms Herrmann said.
For Ms Herrmann and her family, taking an unconventional approach to surnames had led to some confusion when she filled out paperwork such as school enrolment forms but, on the whole, wider family and friends had been accepting.
"It was something I thought about because the future is exciting but legacy and tradition are important too," Ms Herrmann said.
"I think because in lots of other ways we're a bit offbeat, our family went 'Oh, that's just them being weird again'."
Same-sex couple designs meaningful surname
For newlyweds Pam and Dawn Destini — the first same-sex couple to marry in Berri in South Australia — choosing a surname was symbolic.
"We knew we didn't want the names we had. We had both been married, and so we wanted to make our own name and we thought 'destiny' brought us together," Pam Destini said.
She had already changed her name twice — both times adopting her husband's surname — and had not previously placed much importance on surnames.
"I'm a pretty down-to-earth person, my name was Pam, the surname was irrelevant," she said.
"But now it means a lot."
Social researcher Mark McCrindle from McCrindle Research said the introduction of same-sex marriage in Australia would likely see an increase in DIY surnames.
"There's no history, no tradition, no expectation as to how that [surnames] will look, so I think we will get people working out solutions," he said.
"Perhaps the altered or created surname might become a bit mainstream and heterosexual marriages may adopt some of those changes."
Nine out of 10 married women still take on husband's name
Mr McCrindle said the practice of passing down surnames along the paternal lineage developed in European and western cultures about 300 years ago.
"The most common surname is Smith, which is an occupation that became a surname, and Potter and Baker and Cook," Mr McCrindle said.
"So it was a very male-dominated approach."
He said that in Australia nine in 10 women took on their husband's name after marriage.
If a woman retains her own surname, often inherited from her father, the question of naming rights for children becomes a consideration.
Combining two surnames with a hyphen gets complex for future generations, especially if two people with double-barrelled surnames marry.
Those opting to design a surname, either for themselves or their children, can consider creating an entirely new name, going back through their family history to choose an heirloom surname or crafting a name from two surnames.
"Returning to a focus of just having one surname that is shared, but not taken from either his side or her side, is a little bit of a growing trend but it creates challenges around genealogy and tracing, so that's one of the downsides of it," Mr McCrindle said.
"Having a sense of connection with our ancestors in some sort of lineage is great. That can be traced in other ways and a name is not the only way of recognising that, although it's been the most traditional form of doing so."
