How to Make Your Last Name Plural

Let's fix a common mistake that's especially prevalent during the holiday season. We've all seen personalized items, like Christmas cards and ornaments, that read "The Brady's" or some variation of the sort.  

I'm here to tell you that is wrong. Just wrong.

Why, you ask? For the simple fact that an apostrophe is used to denote one's possession of a noun, not plurality. You would never write "the banana's", and you should never write "the Brady's".

I mean, really, the banana's what? What does the banana have? It doesn't make any sense. That's not how we treat nouns.

The bananas. The Bradys. 8 bananas. 8 Bradys. A bunch of bananas. A bunch of Bradys. The banana bunch. The Brady bunch. You get it.

Now that we're clear on apostrophes, let's talk about how to make a noun plural. In most cases you add -s to the end of the noun, and in some cases you add -es.

Not sure which treatment to give your name? Use our guide below.

Names are nouns — treat them as such — and never use an apostrophe to make a name plural again 😊