A Word, Please: Just what you always wanted: a refresher on family names during the holidays
Are the Williamses coming to your house for the holidays? Or are you going to the Williamses’? Maybe you’re planning to celebrate Christmas with the Maciases or the Sanchezes, perhaps at the Nashes’ house or the Ngos’ cabin?
Or maybe you and the rest of the Berrys just want to send a Christmas card to the Antonellis or inquire about the Tanakas’ new baby.
That’s all lovely — till you try to write about it. The holiday season is rife with opportunities to make embarrassing mistakes forming plurals and plural possessives of family names on holiday cards and other correspondence. So strap in for the 2021 edition of our “A Word, Please” holiday tradition: a refresher on how to make family names plural or plural possessive.
The most embarrassing holiday typos occur when you’re writing your own name, usually when signing a Christmas card from the whole gang: “Happy holidays from the Smith’s!” That should be Smiths, not Smith’s, because you want a plural and not a possessive.
The most important rule here: Never use an apostrophe to form a plural. Mr. Antonelli and Mrs. Antonelli are the Antonellis. You may be tempted to insert an apostrophe there because adding an S after a vowel seems to change the pronunciation. Don’t. To form a plural for most names, even names that end in vowels, just add S: the Chos, the Smiths, the Wilsons, the Micelis, the DiAngelos.
It is true that you don’t need to say “it is true that” because if it wasn’t true, you wouldn’t say it — or so writes grammar columnist June Casagrande.
If the name ends in S or another “sibilant” like Z, X, Ch or Sh, make it plural by adding ES. Mr. Jones and Ms. Jones are the Joneses. Jane Nash and Sarah Nash are the Nashes. Two people named Williams are the Williamses. A family named Gonzalez are the Gonzalezes.
Names that end in Y are disorienting because we’re taught that most words that end in Y have irregular plurals: berries, cherries, bodies, skies, flies, allies. But names aren’t like these generic words. As proper nouns, they never change their spelling. You make them plural by adding S. Mrs. and Mr. Berry are the Berrys, not the Berries. Mr. and Ms. Kennedy are the Kennedys. Family members named Riley are the Rileys, and if they’re named Avery they’re the Averys.
None of these plurals takes an apostrophe. The only time you’ll insert an apostrophe is when you’re showing possession, for example by talking about someone’s house or son or vacation.
To show possession, ask yourself whether one person possesses the thing or plural people do. When you’re using a family name to talk about multiple people, that’s a plural. Making these plural names possessive is easy. Just add an apostrophe. Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones are the Joneses and their house is the Joneses’ house. Ms. Avery and her sons are the Averys and their house is the Averys’ house. There are no exceptions for names that end in Z or Ch or similar sounds because every name you make plural will end with an S: Deitriches. Just put an apostrophe after the S to make it possessive: the Deitriches’ house.
Sound too simple to be true? Perhaps that’s because you’re remembering that irregular plurals usually complicate things: children, men, women, people, sheep, cattle. These generic nouns are all plural even though they don’t end in S. You form their possessives by adding both an apostrophe and an S: children’s, men’s, people’s, etc. You don’t have to worry about that with proper names because their plurals always end in S.
So to wish someone happy holidays from the whole gang, just add S or ES at the end of your last name. Merry Christmas from the Baileys! If you want to say you’re going to someone’s house, just put an apostrophe after the possessive S: Have fun at the Baileys’ house!
June Casagrande is the author of “The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.
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