Fa-la-la-la-la. The most wonderful time of the year is upon us. With jingle bells jangling, the smell of our Christmas tree wafting through the family room, holiday tunes playing from our Amazon Alexa and the hustle and bustle that ushers in Tis’ the Season, I’m in a pretty merry spirit.
However, as an editor, I find myself all up in Grinch mode when holiday cards start to arrive and envelopes are addressed with a stray apostrophe, one on the heels of a last name that was made an errant possessive.
It is an occupational hazard to be an editor/copywriter and thus take offense to unwarranted punctuation wherever it pops up (restaurant menus and those scrolling footers during the T.V. news are the most blatant offenders).
But I’m truly baffled by people not understanding what I think of as the well-known rules of how to make their last names properly plural. I just can’t rationalize why it is a discussion point at all as much as I try.
So, without further ado, here is a very brief primer on pluralization and last names.
- If your name ends with a “y”, you simply add an “s”, not “ies” nor an apostrophe.
Ex: Happy Holidays from The Pauleys
- If your name ends with an “s”, “ch”, “sh”, “x” or “z”, you add “es” but no apostrophe. I know this one sometimes makes it look odd but it is correct.
Ex: Merry Christmas from The Simonses
Ex: Merry Christmas from The Churches
Ex: Merry Christmas from The Poshes
Ex: Merry Christmas from The Foxes
Ex: Merry Christmas from The Fonzes
Note: There are a handful of exceptions.
If the name ends in “x”, add “es”—unless the x is silent. So the Felix family would become the Felixes, and the Bordeaux family would become the Bordeauxs.
If the name ends in “ch”, add “es”-unless the “ch” is pronounced like a “k”. So the Church family would become the Churches and the Monarch family would become the Monarchs.
- If your name serves as an irregular noun in everyday language, remember your name is unique and shouldn’t be treated as an irregular noun when making it plural. Re: wolf as an irregular noun would be changed to wolves to make it plural)
Ex: Season’s Greetings from The Wolfs
- For all other names that don’t fall into any of the above categories, just add an “s” to the end of your last name, without an apostrophe.
Ex: Happy New Year from The Denhams
This topic isn’t just my rub, the error of using apostrophes to make last names plural is so common that it has been widely addressed by such prominent publications as Southern Living, HuffPost, and Business Insider.
Now go address those annual holiday cards and be sure to make your last name plural not possessive, pretty please. This editor and copywriter would be so grateful if you did.