Game of Thornes, Ba***rd question :think:
 

This was keeping me awake last night. If a bastard male gets married and has kids do his kids get called a bastard name like Snow eventhough they're not actually bastards? :think:

They're not noblemen so I doubt they matter enough to have a surname

But they have to have a surname :fist:

What about Jon Snows kids? hhmmm

I'm pretty sure the "bastard title" (Snow, Rivers, Sand etc) is specific to the first generation offspring of a house name (Stark, Bolton, Martell). All of the ones we've seen have been anyway... And logically, if it became an inherited surname, there would be loads of little Snows running around after a few hundred years... All you'd need is one bastard ancestor.

So I'd think of it more as a title / description than a surname... Specifically so that people know you as "whoever's child". From what we've seen it carries far more status than being a commoner, whilst deliberately being kept at arm's length from the noble line. They'd be much more willing to accept Jon having a real title if they knew he was of full noble blood, though technically, he would be Jon Targaryen not Jon Stark, as it's his mother who was a Stark.

My guess for the children of bastards is that they would just take the mother's family name?

But what if both parents were bastards :o

They get the bastard name, yeah. Ellaria is a bastard and had children with Oberyn, and the children took her bastard name of Sand rather than the Martell name.

Thank you Locke, I will sleep easy tonight

Oh wait though no, Ellaria isn't married so they actually are bastards

I don't think Ellaria was married to Oberyn though so their kids are bastards too.

I think they can just take up a new last name and start a new house, I think house Karstark and house blackfyre were both started by bastards.

Good point. No idea then, can't think of any other prominent bastard characters that have children.

That could make sense :think: