[Grammar] Correct event name for family re-union

[whitechalk]

Dear teacher,
My in-laws and I have been tasked to organise a family re-union that bear the names of their paternal and maternal great grand parents. This event is to gather all the children of the two grandparents and at the same we are planning to raise some money for a local church. We are going to name the event "The Family Re-union of The Johns and The Marys". Is the phrase correct and appropriate? I have tried to convince my in-laws that the article "the" is quite redundant, but then I feel like being a blind guiding another blind. Uncertain. Please help us come up with a correct and "catchy" name, as we are going to have it printed on our cards and program leaflets later, and even fishtails.
Thank you for reading.
whitechalk

 

[Barb_D]

I don't understand. You have two sets of grandparents, you have, at least "John and Mary" and "Charles and Diana." Why would you choose only two of them?

Use their last name (family name, if it's not last) and call it "The Windsor-Mountbatten Family Reunion"

No hyphen in "reunion"

The Smith-Davis Family Reunion.
The MacDonald-Renaldi Family Reunion

 

[MikeNewYork]

Dear teacher,
My in-laws and I have been tasked to organise a family re-union that bear the names of their paternal and maternal great grand parents. This event is to gather all the children of the two grandparents and at the same we are planning to raise some money for a local church. We are going to name the event "The Family Re-union of The Johns and The Marys". Is the phrase correct and appropriate? I have tried to convince my in-laws that the article "the" is quite redundant, but then I feel like being a blind guiding another blind. Uncertain. Please help us come up with a correct and "catchy" name, as we are going to have it printed on our cards and program leaflets later, and even fishtails.
Thank you for reading.
whitechalk

If these people are "great grand parents", there are also grandparents and parents involved, not to mention siblings and children. There are likely to be many names in the group.

 

[whitechalk]

Both 'John' and 'Mary' were husband and wife, thus they were great-grandparents, or grandparents to my in-laws who wish to organise the event. Since 'John' and 'Mary' were spouses, my in-laws prefer to put up both their names as the event name. Isn't this correct/proper, or otherwise? Or, we might put up "John Family Reunion" (omitting the wife's name)? And without apostrophe "s" after 'John'? Some might feel being 'left out' when they don't see their gandmom's name in the event name, don't you think so. Our culture regarding use of parents' names might be slightly different from the other countries, because everyone here would feel proud of his/her own family lineage - where their dad came from, who are their mom's ancestors, etc ... Seems a bit individualistic, so to admit it here. My apology for that.
Regards again.

 

[5jj]

You need to call this occasion what would be 'correct' in your society, not what we think is appropriate.

 

[whitechalk]

Thanks for all the responses given.

 

[emsr2d2]

Using first names for these things (in English) would be very strange and unusual. Family reunions are almost always connected to the family surname. If one person had tracked down his family and was bringing them all together, he might call it "John's Family Reunion" but in that case, we wouldn't use the article. It wouldn't be "The John Family Reunion".

If you really must use just their first names and you want it to be natural in English, then it would be "John and Mary's Family Reunion".

 

[whitechalk]

"John and Mary's Family Reunion". Only Mary's name has an apostrophe "s", but not John's. Why is this so? Please tell more.

 

[Rover_KE]

It's the family reunion of John and Mary.

"John's and Mary's family reunions" would be correct if they were holding separate reunions.

 

[whitechalk]

Regarding gender, which name would be appropriate to come first in the event name, John's or Mary's?

 

[Tdol]

It doesn't matter.