When engraving a name on engraved door knockers there always seems to be a question of what form to use.
Typically there are three variations of the name. One is to place just the last name on the door knocker. Another is the possessive version with a ‘s on the end. The last variation is a plural version with an s on the end of the name.
Before we go any further let me state that all three methods are correct on engraved door knockers. It just depends on what the you want to say.
The most common method is to place the last name alone in the engraving area of the door knocker. This method is simple and elegant.
The possessive version with the ‘s is also popular. This one is saying that this house belongs to this family. From an engravers standpoint there are a couple issues with this method. One is that the hyphen ‘ does not always stand out as well as the other letters on an engraving. This causes the engraving to be visually off a bit even though it is not. It also adds two characters to the line. This may be beneficial if the name is short. It will help fill the engraving space more efficiently. In the case of a long name it may take up to much space thus forcing the engraving to be smaller to fit into the space available. In the case of a last name ending with an s the plural would be a hyphen without an additional s. I recommend avoiding this. When engraving a name ending with an s with a hyphen following it the finished engraving looks off center. This again is due to the added hyphen not being as visible as the other letters.
The plural version is nice. It says more than one family member lives at this house. An s added to the end of the name only adds one character and will seldom cause a problem. In some instances it could cause confusion as to whether the s is part of the name or is a plural version of the name.
As I mentioned earlier the most common method is to put just the last name on the engraved door knocker. If you are in doubt this is usually the best choice.
Nothing personalizes a house like an engraved door knocker.
