Ok, first of all, I want to say that I do not go around crusading against people choosing surnames for their child, and I do recognize that there’s much gray area in what is a first name and what is a surname, traditionally. That said, I was perusing my [name]Baby[/name] Name [name]Wizard[/name], and I came across an excerpt which I think perfectly sums up why I, and I think many Berries, instinctively tend to dislike surnames for the sake of sounding like surnames.
“[name]Milton[/name]: [name]Milton[/name] is a cautionary tale for surnames. It’s not a bad name by any means, but it’s not what the parents who chose it originally intended. Like [name]Grayson[/name] or [name]Dalton[/name] today, [name]Milton[/name] was supposed to sound high class and elegant. It ended up the king of the borscht belt, a world apart from the aristocracy it aspired to join.”- [name]Laura[/name] Wattenberg
I think that really distills my feelings about the rash of surname names. It just seems like, as a group, they are all already somewhere on the trickle-down continuum from high-class to critical mass. I mean, [name]Winslow[/name] could be a 4th generation [name]Harvard[/name] lawyer…or the latest Teen Mom’s baby. I think surnames are fine IF there is a reason to choose it, other than because it sounds fancy. Because, in 20 years, it might not sound so fancy, and there needs to be another reason to love it.
[steps off soapbox]
That’s a very interesting perspective; I never thought of it that way. I despise surnames as first names, though I can’t exactly put my finger on why. I guess because it seems like such a trendy thing to do these days? I feel like the first people who started doing it thought they were being super creative - and maybe they were - but now, everyone is doing it, so there is nothing creative, unique, or original about the practice.
That said, I do love [name]Winslow[/name] as a first name - makes me think of the artist [name]Winslow[/name] [name]Homer[/name]. I doubt back then it was a trendy thing to use surnames as first names, so I do, actually, think of it as a first name more than a surname. But maybe it was trendy back in the 1830s, who knows 
I think there’s a lot more behind chosing a name that thinking it’s fancy, and that goes whether the final name ends up being [name]William[/name] or [name]Carter[/name]. Parents chose a name because they like the sound of it, can agree on it and it suits their baby, if these criteria fit a name that was once upon a time a surname then it is no different to whether they fit a name that has been within the family for three generations. In my opinion at least there is a lot more to picking names that it being “fancy” because if there wasn’t, everyone would be called [name]Beatrice[/name], [name]Elizabeth[/name], [name]Charles[/name], [name]Philip[/name] etc. And besides, what’s to say a teen mum can’t pick [name]Charles[/name] for her baby? Does that instantly make [name]Charles[/name] trashy? Or are there exceptions to names that have been around a litle bit longer? [name]Just[/name] saying that everything’s not as black and white as you made it sound.
palejewel, [name]Winslow[/name] might not have been the best example. Let’s change it to…Worthington. A little more overtly surnamey.
milliemm, I agree, as I said, that there is a lot of gray area here. I just find the surname trend so fascinating-especially when people seem to be choosing names more and more based on the fact that they sound, well, like someone’s last name. And the names that are mined-[name]Carter[/name] and [name]Harrison[/name], not [name]Meyer[/name] and Kowalski-says something about the reason behind these names that I think we aren’t always willing to admit.
I think the same can be said about compound middle names, they’re becoming so common today but in all honestly, eventually most everything goes to the masses. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing but it’s true it sort of loses it’s appeal when everyone starts doing it.