3.8 Titles. The title is the name carried by a person because of special respect or honor due to him. Unlike a surname, the title is not carried by children, though the wife of a man with a title may share it by using the female counterpart of his position designation: Duke/Duchess, Marquis/Marchioness, Earl/Countess, Viscount/Viscountess, Baron/Baroness among peerage (a governing body in the United Kingdom), and Lord/Lady among the lesser nobility. The title is inherited by the laws of primogeniture. One may acceed to a title by marriage to the heiress, but normally the heir acceeds to the title at the death of the one holding it. Sometimes the use of a title for both a surname or following a position can be confusing. Hence, there may be “Thomas Howard, Baron Howard de Walden.” Derivation of a surname from a title is quite common among the nobility as a device for distinguishing persons of legitimate and illegitimate ancestry. For example, the surname of the children of Edward de Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley, and his wife was Sutton, yet the children of his mistress all carried the surname of Dudley. Sometimes genealogists have derived a surname for titled individuals who managed without one during life. For example, descendants of John of Gaunt are assigned the nickname Plantagenet as a surname (which I propose to have been invented by Welsh antiquarians, as in that language it means “children of Ghent”).