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Why Kids Inherit Dad’s Last Name Instead of Mom’s — You Might Not Have Considered the Reasons Before

Feb. 20, 2013 7:23am Liz Klimas

Regardless of how you feel about last name changes based on marriage, there are arguments in favor of children always taking on the father’s last name that you might not have thought about before.

Why Fathers Last Name Usually Carries on With Children Instead of Mothers

(Photo: Shutterstock.com)

Satoshi Kanazawa for Big Think wrote that although it might actually make a whole lot of sense for women to keep their maiden name, children should always take the father’s name. But why? Why not, as Parade’s Marilyn vos Savant suggests, let boys take their father’s name and girl’s their mother’s name?

Kanazawa’s main point as to why not is the fact of investment on the part of the father that generally results in greater survival of the child. And the likelihood of men investing is often dependent on them believing the child is theirs, since their paternity is not certain like that of a mother who carries and births the baby (emphasis added):

Patrilineal inheritance of family names is another social institution that emerged to convince the fathers of their paternity, by saying (if social institutions have a vocal cord) “The baby’s really yours, because it has your last name!” Russians take it one step further, by giving their children – both their sons and daughters – middle and last names after the father.

Fathers are therefore expected to invest more heavily in children who bear their last names than children who bear the mother’s last names, because they are more likely to be convinced of their paternity. As a result, ceteris paribus,children who inherit their last names from their fathers are expected to be more likely to survive and thrive than children who inherit their last names from their mothers.

Kanazawa also pointed out that some studies have shown babies are born looking more like the father than the mother potentially to trigger biological recognition by the father — even on a subconscious level — and support his paternity.

Carol Lloyd for Salon took up the issue of children taking the father’s last name in 2000 with similar conclusions to that of Kanazawa:

“Inheritance laws, political bodies, surnames — it’s all about compensating for men’s inability to give birth,” [political theorist Jackie] Stevens contends. “The surname remains the only way of showing legitimacy. Without it, there’s no certainty that the kid has a legal father.”

[...]

Yet it’s interesting that traditionally, the man shows his commitment to the child by giving his name, while the woman shows that same commitment by giving up her own. Why are so many men still so attached to their last names?

“Identification with the father,” says Chodorow. “I don’t think it’s any mystery. It’s the classic “in the name of the father” — in Lacanian psychoanalysis. The mother has the baby in utero but the name is how men get tied to their babies. The tie has to happen somehow that ‘This is my baby too.’ If she’s feeling generous, then this is a way to show it.”

The New York Times on the issue of complicated last names in the age of hyphenation and non-traditional couples gave this example of where the husband’s last name won out as well:

Zoe Segal-Reichlin, 33, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood in New York, was typical in her approach to naming her son, now 10 months old. She said she flirted with alternatives: hyphenating three names, picking either Segal or Reichlin to link with her husband’s name. But ultimately, none felt quite right, and going with the father’s name won out as the most practical choice.

“It was the best of bad options,” she told me.

The Times pointed to an early 2000s paper by a Penn State professor that believed the importance of a patrilineal last name would decline due to women keeping their maiden names, divorce, remarriages and same sex couples.

Still, as of 2011 a survey found that two-thirds of people believed women should take their husbands’ last names, in part because of the naming of future children. In the 1990s, women keeping maiden names rose to about 23 percent, based on one study, but that trend seemed to decline to 19 percent in the 2000s. A survey polling 19,000 women married in 2010 found only 8 percent maintained their maiden name.

Let us know what you think about children’s last names by taking our poll.

Featured image via Shutterstock.com.

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Comments (146)

idahopatriot
Posted on February 22, 2013 at 12:27am
What if the child doesn’t want the fathers name because he beat the **** out him or her? True example in my family, when my sister changed her name back to our family name so did her kids so not be be associated with the dirt bag.

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RamonPreston
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 12:41pm
You mean “Name it after the mother” because you know who the mother is?

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Orastreet
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 10:43am
Funny how liberals do studies and need such affirmation on the simplest traditions and institutions. Reminds me of a Time magazine stories about the difference between boys and girls and the shock they they are “Born Different.” I hope this didn’t cost too much taxpayer money.

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Mays24
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 9:20am
MCON29 said:
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 10:06am

Zoe Segal-Reichlin, 33, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood in New York, was typical in her approach to naming her son, now 10 months old.

Some day that boy will realize how lucky he is to be alive.

I say ‘Amen’. He also may later learn that he wasn’t really an only child…but actually the only survivor

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dragonasbreath
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 11:43pm
Actually, this is a purely cultural thing that allows men to prove their prowess by pointing out the children they have sired. It is nothing more or less than inheritable property rights from a time when women were simply brood mares and cattle whose sole job was to produce sons for their master (sorry, the daughters are of worth only as bargaining chips for power and land, that’s why they are always the first killed in famines)

As far as DNA goes, both male adn female descent is traceable through DNA for long periods of time – but they can also see where a mutation changed the line – such as the ability to roll your tongue, or to have blue eyes.

As far as who should have what name – in some societies women and children take the fathers, in some fathers and children take the mothers, in others boys take the fathers, girls take the mothers.
There are countries where they take both names (usually Mother and Father format)

There is no validity at all to this argument, nor to the father having more time and energy invested in the child than the mother – by and large it’s the other way, once they are born.

Also, think of this – you can guarantee who the mother is – she gave birth to the child, after all – there is NO WAY (until modern times, and it’s still not 100%) of guaranteeing who the father is.

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mbean
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 10:20pm
Anything traditional must be wrong.

Lets start hyphenating all kids names so that within a few generations names will be hundreds of letters long.

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MrNirom1
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 9:58pm
From a genealogy point of view.. it is always the females that seem to get left out of the family tree. Why? Because they get married and take on their husbands last name. The males can be easily traced whether married or not. The only problem becomes which mother? If a man has been married more than once.. then you have to hopefully figure out when they married to determine who the mother is. The ideal way would be to give the child a first name.. middle name is wife’s maiden name.. and then the father’s last name. When the female child gets married.. she then can hyphenate her name with her husbands. Tracing families over time would have been much easier.

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- dragonasbreath
  Posted on February 20, 2013 at 11:44pm
  And don’t forget the problem of multiple married names further muddying the women’s lineage tracing!
  
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N37BU6
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 8:43pm
Personal decision. Who cares in any instance other than their own?

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Flashydave
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 8:36pm
All these issues are the result of the out of wedlock baby explosion. Hard to ignore all the social problems and breakdowns of social and moral standards. Liberals keep saying how great it is that they now ‘care’ for all these kids. Is starvation of the ‘soul and personality’ of a child really a crime too? Not having the kinds of education a father’s family can provide stunts a lot of individuals personal growth and sense of place in society thru their family. Starvation is apparent even in a well fed ‘welfare b@st@rd’

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- dragonasbreath
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 12:01am
  No, all of these decisions are the result of Women being allowed personal freedom rather than servitude in perpetuity to their lord and Master the husband.
  Remember the entire marriage ceremony is about her current owner – her father or brother normally – handing ownership of her and the bridegifts they used to purchase the liason to her new owner, the husband, to do with as he will, including killing her.
  Thankfully SOME COUNTRIES and SOCIETIES have outgrown this Dark Ages approach to co-habitation.
  
  Report this comment
LBJDIDIT1963
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 8:28pm
I too believe it was about tracking bloodlines and avoiding accidental in-breeding which increases the chances of birth defect or disease.

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Patriotmom54
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 8:06pm
I am a woman, but I basically can’t stand hyphenated names. I really don’t get it. I was quite happy to take my husband’s name and NEVER felt at all like it took away from my identity. It makes sense to have a system and it makes sense to stick with it. People don’t ever seem to think through these things. So if Bill Smithfield marries Jill Werkenheimer and she becomes Jill Werkenheimer-Smithfield and they have a baby who takes this name & so becomes Sally Werkenheimer-Smithfield….who then grows up to marry Joe Moskowitzl-O’Malley does Sally become Sally Werkenheimer-SMithfield-Moskowitzl-O’Malley? PLEASE!!!!! Get over it.

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- dragonasbreath
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 12:06am
  You would love that obit I saw about 10 years ago then:
  
  Died at age 68: Mrs James Doe.
  
  That’s it. She has no identity beyond she was his wife. No name, no kin, no place of residence. Just that his shadow has finally followed him in death.
  
  This is what you are so enamored with for no other reason than this is what the society you were born into expects you to do … it’s what Good God-Fearing Girls do, after all
  
  Report this comment
229Mick
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 8:06pm
If tjhey have any idea who the father is….

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- dragonasbreath
  Posted on February 20, 2013 at 11:58pm
  Most do, they simply choose not to affiliate with them.
  This kind of comment is inappropriate at any time.
  
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Mr.Fitnah
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 8:05pm
If you are on foodstamps you have to take Obama’s name.

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shakedowncrews
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 7:39pm
as an anglo married to a latina we ran into this issue. the latin american/spanish tradition is first/second name followed by father’s name them mother’s father’s last name. anglos use a simple three name system of first middle last. of) when a latina marries she keeps her full 4 names and adds “de” (of) and the husband’s paternal last name.
i wanted my kids to keep both their anglo and latin identities. so we hyphenated paternal-maternal last nae. not so much to be pc buy since my wife immigrated legally and lost her close contact w her family and culture

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Kaneakua
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 6:45pm
Putting the horse before the cart, biological parents should get married and stay loyally married in order to fulfill both their responsibilities to the child. Then the paternity issue is not in question to the child or the parents. Also the child won’t grow up being ashamed of their biological father’s last name. If women weren’t concerned with. A father abandoning the family there would be less reason to protect the family from changes of name due to divorce or abandonment. Even if a faithless, loyal, loving father dies his children and wife would be proud to carry his legacy through his name. If the father is a loser, ahoy would anyone want to continue his name?

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John_K
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 5:42pm
I bet you could get a similar study showing divorce is more likely if a woman doesn’t take her husband’s name.

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strawberry411a
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 5:09pm
The best of BAD options? Just name your kid “KID” then. There is absolutely no common sense left in this world. The last name was the FATHER”s for legacy and entitlement as HEIRS. It was practical, traditional and cultural. But with this new crew of single mommies and homosexual daddies, tradition and common sense take a back seat to “originality” and screw the system. Look at this country as a result. Eventually you libs will get your wish..no humans left …only WORMS.

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Larry E
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 4:59pm
The Icelanders currently and other Scandinavians up into the 19th Century all carried their father’s first name, with the boys last name getting the suffix of “son” or “sen” depending on the country, and “dotter”, “dottir”, or similar depending. The only problem is that you had to know the dad’s first name if you tried to find someone, but it made sense sort of. Married women kept their names but with maybe an added notation that they were “so and so’s wife”.

I think that it’s mostly only raving feminists who care much about this anyway.

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Mike76
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 4:49pm
Just don’t hyphenate the names like “liberated” women are doing now. I can’t take a person with a hyphenated name seriously – something about it makes me feel like that person is just a little too self-absorbed.

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- bobbiejean
  Posted on February 20, 2013 at 5:49pm
  Depends on the situation, Mike. True story—have a family member who married a woman
  with a child from a prior relationship. The childs last name is that of the mothers. The man
  has a child from a prior marriage; no problem—the childs last name is the same as fathers.
  The two parents married and have a hyphenated last name which includes both children,
  incorporating all into the family.
  
  Report this comment
- strawberry411a
  Posted on February 20, 2013 at 5:56pm
  Yes I have seen that situation as well. I think he was referring to the liberated female that doesn’t want to lose her “identity” by taking a males name…..of course she has forgotten that HER name is a male’s name…her daddy.
  
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- mewnani
  Posted on February 20, 2013 at 6:26pm
  Or they could just give the kids the adopted father’s last name. That’s how it used to be done; combining family names just gets everybody confused.
  
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