Purpose of Household Name field

I'm wondering what the purpose of the household name field is.
I was thinking it could be used to link multiple households with the same address (multiple generations of adults, etc.). Would it make sense to do this?
Of course, there could be several household groupings with the same last name, so in these cases, I was thinking I would need to name them as Smith 1, Smith 2, ...etc.

The Household name is used in the directory. It's the last name all the members of the household are filed under.

Thank you russellhltn. I understood that was the case.
But I don't understand why a separate editable field is needed. Household members are already linked to the Head of House - and his or her last name would be the name of the household - if this is the only purpose.

My thought was to maybe use this field to group multiple households at the same address (often with different last names) with a unique household name to readily identify those in the same "house" when assigning home teachers, etc.

greggo wrote:My thought was to maybe use this field to group multiple households at the same address (often with different last names) with a unique household name to readily identify those in the same "house" when assigning home teachers, etc.

The household name transfers when records move so I don't think it should be edited based on other households in the ward. That would just cause confusion for the next unit.

My guess is that it's mostly to allow a compound household name when spouses have different last names although I haven't seen it used for that much.

I had forgotten that the household name transfers with the record.
It would be good to know what the designers were thinking this field should be used for.

There was only one time when I edited the content of this field. We had a sister in a single member household move into our unit with a different household name than her last name - we came to find out that the household name was actually her new married name, but her record was never updated to show the divorce from her previous husband and marriage to her new husband. I found that it caused more confusion and changed it back to the last name on her record until we are able to update the marriage information.

It is also the case that in many countries, the wife retains her own family name on marriage. Generally, as a rule, she would be attached to her spouses surname, via his last name which would normally be the Household name listed in the Directory.

I hope my explanation makes sense.

Again, even in these cases, I don't see the need for a separate field, as the records are already linked and can pull the head of household's last name to be sorted under. (Actually I probably should use the term surname instead of last name, as in some countries they order their given name last).

If the purpose of the field is to be able to change that "default" to something else (such as if a sister marries a non-member but retains her maiden name, and those in the ward may not know to look for her under her husband's name), I think there are better ways to do it.
I liked the way MIS used to do it when they would list the name in two places (under the member's surname and under the HofH's surname). When under the member's surname, it would direct the reader to the HofH's surname.

From the help prompt in LCR:

The household name is displayed on pages and reports that list members by household. It is usually the last name of the head of household and should not be changed unless requested by the member.