A hyphenated last name is the ultimate badge for those unable to make one stupid decision in their life.

Not everyone who has a hyphenated last name chose it. Particularly in the UK, which ironically (or not?) is where the tax computers don’t like hyphens.

Not so long ago: when a wealthy or titled family had no son they might choose to allow their daughter to inherit the estate and/or peerage, rather than, say, a nephew on the father’s side. It was common for the inheritance to be conditional upon the family name being preserved. During much of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Britain, this was done by hyphenating the son-in-law’s name with the daughter’s maiden name.

Also this:

In England (and other English-speaking countries), a kind of inverse snobbery has grown up where families not belonging to the aristocracy avoid the use of hyphens, while the House of Lords insists on the hyphen. When the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was elevated to the Lords, he was obliged to use a hyphen in his title of Lord Lloyd-Webber.

As you can see, the refusal of the UK tax computers to recognize hyphenated names would raise some eyebrows.

I have a hyphenated last name. I made my DECISION to honor my birth and my chosen family. I love how my name sounds and like it hyphenated. On the contrary, it was a decision made difficult because of society’s strange “accepted” norms that a woman “should” take her husband’s name. I chose to take his AND remember my roots. Viva choice!