Why is it the father that passes the family name and not the mother?

Answer 1

It is mainly in American culture that the mother's name is discarded.

In other societies the father and mother's names are given to the child so that people know which families the baby comes from.

Answer 2

I would imagine because of laws regarding descent and distribution. Property was usually passed through the male line.

Actually there was a time when people did not have surnames. Fellas who were sons of Jack became Jacksons. However, now, there was more than one Jack that had sons. Not everyone with the same surname comes from the same root.

Then some took the name of their trade, like smith, baker, clark(clerk), miller,fisher.

or their habitation, town or castle they lived close to, or if the lived close to a lake they might have taken the surname lake. Sam lived on a hill and became Sam Hill but other people, not related to Sam, lived on a hill and they took the name Hill. I have some Overtons on my mother's side. It simply means over town. So you can imagine how many people lived over a town.

The Celtic prefix Mac,Mc and the Norman Irish Fitz means son of, the prefix O means descendant of. The suffix lin means lineage of.

Now in Britain many people have a double name.

In Hispanic countries it is a legal requirement but they do it differently

The husband's name is his father's name followed by his mother's name.

The wife has her husband (patrynomic name) followed by her maiden name and the children have the same.

until

the daughter gets married. She drops her mother's maiden name and pushes her fahter's to the right and put her husband's patrynomic name in front.

In Mexico you always address a person by their first surname, not their second.

Answer 3

In the British Isles, traditionally real property, both entailed and otherwise, and aristocratic titles were inherited by the oldest male within a family unless there wasn't a male left to inherit, for instance, Henry VIII's crown eventually passed to Elizabeth I, and James V of Scotland's title passed to Mary Queen of Scots. Of course, in some instances, when the family lacked a male heir, the spouse of the female heiress took her surname, placing his surname before hers--hence Winston Spenser Churchill descends from both a Spenser (a male ancestor) and a Churchill (a female ancestor).

Answer 4

Patriarchial cultures typically pass along the male surname. Matriarchial cultures pass on the female, or combined female-male surnames; such as in Mexico where hyphenated names are common, i.e., Jesus Diaz-Gomez. Diaz is the mother's name and Gomez the father's. European cultures are patriarchial and laws of inheritance typically favor the male heirs of a male family head. Ergo, the male name becomes more significant in heirship.

Answer 5

Because there's always been this thing where males are more dominate that the females. Now, I'm pretty sure the man can take the womans name and drop his name instead. I'm not sure though. If you want the history on that, then you'll probably need to google it. Google solves everything.

Answer 6

The mother is always sure who her baby is because she was there when it was born. The father needs some way to make the baby his so the baby takes his name. (This isn't the case in every culture.)

Answer 7

We gave our son a double-barreled name because I wanted my maiden name to carry on. Hundreds of years ago the mums maiden name was given to her child to make sure it carried on, just the same as a double-barreled name,

Answer 8

it doen't have to be usually thats just what the parents choose

Answer 9

BECAUSE IT'S A MANS WORLD