I am trying to get a sense of how often the commutator subgroup $[G,G]$ of a (Gromov) hyperbolic group $G$ is infinitely generated.
Remarks:
$[G,G]$ is infinitely generated if is $G$ is free noncyclic, and of course $[G,G]$ is finitely generated when $G$ has finite abelianization.
There are examples when a hyperbolic group has an finitely generated, normal (infinite) subgroup (of infinite index), obtained via various versions of the Rips constructions, or Morse theory considerations of Bestvina-Brady and Brady, see here .
More generally, how often is the kernel of a surjection $G\to\mathbb Z$ infinitely generated (or infinitely presented)? Here is a specific:
Question. Suppose the abelianization of $G$ has rank $>1$, so that there are infinitely many surjections $G\to \mathbb Z$. Is it true that there are infinitely many surjections $G\to\mathbb Z$ whose kernel is not finitely generated?