Change the naming scheme?

Published on December 24, 2004 By XX In Home & Family

I have been thinking on this once a while for years now. The old system of women changing last names when they marry is getting old. After all, the equality happened. Time to change that fossilized system.

But how do we change it to something more suitable yet equal to everyone? That took me quite a while on once a while hard thinking. This is quite a bizarre thought experiment for me, since I am not very social at all. It's not because I'm a geek. I am one, but thats not the only cause.

So what is the solution? We can't simply set it so it's men who change the last names. That's not changing anything at all, other than flipping the sex. That won't even touch the main problem, which is equality.

So in this current system, male, let's call him Joe Moe Donald. The female is Jane Rose Yonz.

Suppose Joe and Jane got married, then had 3 kids, a female, then 2 males.

The names would be this:
Joe Moe Donald
Jane Rose Donald
( kids )
Kane Jon Donald
Don Jun Donald
Tom Hoa Donald

What happened to the woman's last name of Yonz? That's gone now! All the kids have Donald as last names. Suppose we set it so the women keeps the last names, while males change theirs. What happens? Now all of their last names is now Yonz and Donald last name is now gone!

So it don't change anything. That's why it took me a while of thinking on how to change it and add fairness to this naming system.

I decided that best way to add fairness by letting both male and female keep their names after marriage. Of course, some do that already, That's why it is a good solution. This solution has a MAJOR flaw, however.

Result after marriage and 3 kids:
Joe Moe Donald
Jane Rose Yonz
( kids )
Kane Jon ?????
Don Jun ?????
Tom Hoa ?????

What about the kids? History says that we receives our last names from the father. That don't have any of the important ( to me ) part of solution, fairness.

That part was the hardest part. It took a very large part of my problem solving time to solve ( well possibly anyway... ) this. When the answer hit me, the simplicity surprised me. Especially after long time thinking about this. Now, I don't have any social PHD or anything. That may be the reason it took me so long, even not counting the time gaps between actual thinking on this.

The possible answer is this: The kid's last AND middle name is determined by their own sex. "Wait a minute!", you say, "Don't it mean that it's not fair, since last 2 solutions, including historical one, depends on sex and it wasn't fair!". Well, yes last 2 depended on sex and it was unfair. This is unusual, but so far I'm been thinking on this, it works. It may take massive social change to start using this system, but once it starts... It even have a bonus solution on tracing on both father side and mother side too. More on that later.

Basically, with my naming system, the naming results would be this:
Joe Moe Donald
Jane Rose Yonz
( kids )
Kane Donald Yonz
Don Yonz Donald
Tom Yonz Donald

Remember, the oldest kid is female, then next 2 kids is male. With that, do you see the pattern of my solution?

Basically, the male kid gets to keep the father's last name, but has mother's last name as middle name. Female kid has mother's last name but father's middle name. That way, there is fairness, even though it's determined by sex like other 2 schemes!

So the people's name would be largely determined by parent's last names now. But that's not really a big change, once people gets used to this idea, and it's widely adopted... there's one big bonus on ascendancy tracing after many generations. Nowadays it's pretty easy to trace fathers. Want to trace mothers? It's hell. After each marriage the woman's last names is different! In this example, Joe's last name, Donald could have been in family for generations. Jane's last name traces only to her father. How about Jane's mother? Sure, she has Yonz last name too. But she changed her name when she married, so her mother has different last name. Repeat this for previous generation Nth times.

With my new naming system, you can trace either way without any problems. After all, from it's starting point and on, you have both mother's name and father's name in all of their children. Hell, it's easier to find the lost last name of father in records. If the child is female, it's same as middle name, male child, the last name is same. Only way for person's last name to be totally lost is for that person to be childless.

If you like this idea, you can publish it anywhere, anywhen and in any way you want, without alteration of my words. Credits to me is good idea, you wouldn't want to plagiarize someone.

Wow. This must be record longest blog I ever made. Granted, it's a complex subject and something I was thinking about that in my free and idle time for few years.

Comments

TasT

on Dec 24, 2004

That's quite the concept.

Though it would make some names really long and sometimes strange sounding such as Elizabeth Johann Opasinsky and would negate the use of a middle name.

I think it would be better to let the people choose whether the woman changes her name or not and allow the partents to choose the entire name fore their children even if the last name is not the same as the parents.

Danny Bassette

on Dec 24, 2004

I think it has potential, but I like people having middle names as they do now. So maybe change it so last name is oneparent-otherparent. So in your example one of the kids would be Kane Jon Donald-Yonz. And then when she had kids (asusming she did) she would only pass on the Yonz part, not both. Otherwise we'd end up with really long names...

on Dec 24, 2004

That's quite the concept.

Thanks.

Though it would make some names really long and sometimes strange sounding such as Elizabeth Johann Opasinsky and would negate the use of a middle name.

That's true. But then how much times do we actually use our FULL name? Usually we just state first and last name, and maybe initial for middle name, if at all. But then this is part of something that I said society would have to adjust to before my solution becomes acceptable.

think it has potential, but I like people having middle names as they do now. So maybe change it so last name is oneparent-otherparent. So in your example one of the kids would be Kane Jon Donald-Yonz. And then when she had kids (assuming she did) she would only pass on the Yonz part, not both.

I did think about that. It didn't work out since next generation would lose one part, making tracing ascendancy much, much harder. Tracing with my naming scheme is much easier than even tradition based naming scheme.

Ravenblack

on Dec 29, 2004

Nothing to add for now, but I must say, very interesting thoughts.

on Dec 29, 2004

Thanks.

Einstein

on Jan 08, 2005

Are you aware that in India - and I believe other asian cultures, the Male children take the father's first name as their last name, and the female children take the mother's first name as their last name? I knew two married co-workers whose names were Kondal Rao (husband) and Anupauma Gundeverapu (wife), they had a son and his name was Nosgul Kondal. So it follows what you are talking about, but you can see that over time the husband and wife don't really share anything (name-wise) in common. Now the son isn't name associated with his mother. I think that is hard to trace family lines - but that is just me.

I wonder if there are lots of other traditions out there that are confusing and "unfair" to us Western minded folks.

Einstein

on Jan 08, 2005

Yeah? Wow that's different...

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