Press Center

Judges Dash Hopes of Hyphen in Son’s Name

New York Post, July 5, 1983

By Jack Peritz

A court has made its point – about a hyphen.

And now it has pronounced a sentence: a mother must remove the humble punctuation mark from her son’s name.

The ruling was made by four male judges, dashing the hopes of a lone female judge.

That hyphen creates a new last name, the judges ruled Tuesday. Nonsense, exclaimed Judge Betty Ellerin, the only woman on the Manhattan Appellate Court bench.

It “does nothing more than acknowledge that the child has a mother as well as a father,” she said.

The tempest arose from a squabble between the divorced, parents of 10-year old Matthew William Hahn Gershowitz. When he was born, his father Michael and his Mother, Arlene Hahn, gave him a hyphenless name.

As part of the couple’s 1977 divorce, the mother agreed not to change the boy’s surname “formally or informally” without the husband’s express written consent.

Two years ago, Gershowitz, a professor, discovered his son’s name had become Hahn-Gershowitz.

He hired attorney Jay Itkowitz and sued.

He lost in Supreme Court Justice Hortense Gabel’s court.

But Gershowitz appealed.

And now he has won.

“Joining a middle and last name by a hyphen creates a new last name,” the judges declared.