Why are boys sometimes given their father's first name, but girls never their mother"s ?

It's a leftover due to patriarchal societies. In matriarchal cultures, you'll see girls with their mother's names.





However, since our culture views the father as the namesake, since he can only produce one line while a woman can have children by different men. (duh) We feel that to claim the child as his own, the father gets the right to often saddle the child with a similar namesake.





This trend seems to have evolved from royalty too. To maintain a public image, royalty has consistently renamed their chilldren to not allow the public to more easily distinguish between them. Of course, the public adopted this trend to be more like the royals.





You have to admit, you do kinda think more of a person who is the fifth or even the third instead of just a name, you always assume they might come from an established famiy or money, right? Mission accomplished.





Main explanation: Patriarchy

Why are boys sometimes given their father's first name, but girls never their mother"s ?
My children all have my last name.............and no, it isn't really Chingada, lol.





funny thing about carrying on the male family name is that you always know who the mother is but can't be 100% about dad
Reply:same reason that they do not wear their mothers prom dress.





girls like to feel unique. it makes them feel special. they will even take pains to not wear the same outfit as other gorls in schools.





guys on the other hand...we like things easy...name a kid..my name is fine. i can not forget it, and i know how to spell it already..so what is wrong with my name.





in fact my father was so lazy that he tried to time my birth to fall on his birthday..he was off by 3 days.
Reply:Because by naming a boy after the father they are carrying on a family name. Girls were expected to be married and then take the name of their husband, so therfore the name would end there.
Reply:because traditionally--girl's wasnt considered important???
Reply:Some girls are named after their mothers, it's just not as common in this country. Madonna was named after her mother.
Reply:Just a small smile kind of answer. Our daughter has her Grandmother's first and middle name, my wife's middle name, and, like her mother a hyphenated last name of my last name and my wife's maiden name.





This all worked out well in the family as our daughter is nicknamed BJ. However, her entire name drives computer programs crazy.
Reply:Girls are sometimes given their mother's first name. It's often a matter of family tradition.
Reply:I think it probably dates back to feudal times when males were supposed to "carry on the family name" while girls were to be used to further wealth or prestige through arranged marriages. Also in the Norse countries, that is why so many of them are named Johnson, Thompson, Nicholson(meaning litterally John's son, etc...) Nowadays though some hollywood types are naming their son's strangely(Ahmet Zappa?) Boys have more traditional names, while girls represent the sign of the times. Yeah, Tiffany is gonna be a real cute name for an 80 y/o grandma, but Grandpa Mike, he's alright!
Reply:Girls are sometimes given their mother's name out of tradition. It's like the first girl in that certain family is named a certain name, and she has to pass it on to her first daughter, and to her first daughter, and so on. It's mostly out of tradition, but not that many people use the same name over and over. It's horribly confusing.