Matriname

Matrilineal surnames are inherited or handed down from mother to daughter (to daughter) in matrilineal cultures, and this line of descent or mother line is called a matriline. For clarity and brevity, the scientific term matrilineal surname will usually be simplified as matriname.^[1]

The more familiar patrilineal surnames are likewise inherited or handed down from father to son (to son) in patrilineal cultures (or societies), and likewise appear here simplified as patrinames.^[2] These father-line surnames, more commonly called family names, are treated in-depth in the Family name article.

The present article, Matriname, aims to likewise present what is known about mother-line surnames, first as single surnames and then as part of double surnames. For clarity and brevity, exceptions such as adoption will be ignored.

The terms family name or surname are used interchangeably in this article—and similarly father-line or patrilineal, and mother-line or matrilineal.

Single surname

Matrinames have existed since before patrinames and since even before 1600 BCE, see the China section of the article Matrilineality.

Note that the term "maternal surname" might be confused with "matriname" but maternal surname actually means mother's surname, which is a patriname (instead of matriname) for most cultures today –– see the whole Family name article. Note also that one's mother's patriname(s) may be inherited from either or both of one's mother's parents, in some patrilineal cultures in the Family name article. Such patrilineal cultures would permit matrinames to co-exist with patrinames there, as follows:

The mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA is handed down (or inherited, or passed) from mother to child, and the Y-chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) from father to son, whether or not any surname even exists in that society. In patrilineal cultures, the patriname is handed down from father to son with their (built-in) Y-DNA, while in matrilineal cultures which have matrinames, similarly the matriname is handed down from mother to daughter with their built-in mtDNA. Thus, even within a patrilineal culture, if any women who thus share the same built-in mtDNA are able to choose a surname and then hand it down to successive generations, by definition that surname would become a matrilineal surname or matriname within a patrilineal culture. The test of whether a particular surname is a matriname is to determine whether it is actually being handed down from mother to daughter (to daughter) in a matriline.^[1]

The usual lack of matrinames to hand down in patrilineal cultures, see the whole Family name article, makes traditional genealogy more difficult in the mother-line case than in the normal (father-line) case.^[1] After all, father-line surnames originated partly "to identify individuals clearly" and/or were adopted partly "for administrative reasons," see Family name (History); and these patrinames help now in searching for facts and documentation from centuries ago. Thus, patrinames are stable identity-surnames, surnames which identify an individual, whether now or in the past or future; and matrinames similarly are identity-surnames for women.

Relatively recently, in its 1979 "Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women," or CEDAW, the UN officially adopted a provision, item (g) of CEDAW's Article 16, to the effect that women and men, and specifically wife and husband, shall have the same rights to choose a "family name", as well as a "profession" and an "occupation".^[3] These three rights are just part of the document's long list of women's rights or gender equality rights which women need to have, the same as men need them. The United States has not yet ratified this UN Convention, or multilateral treaty, see CEDAW.

Thus, in non-discriminating States, women may eventually gain the same right to their own matriname as men have traditionally had (within father-line cultures) to their own patriname. And similarly, within mother-line or matrilineal cultures, men may gain the right to their own patriname. In other words, the handing down of both matrinames and patrinames would co-exist within each culture in order to avoid discriminating against either women or men. (Note that some cultures have no surnames – but if a culture has surnames then in this regard a non-discriminating culture would be a both-lines [mother-line and father-line] or ambilineal culture.)

This surname symmetry between the two genders – this surname gender symmetry – will be mentioned again in the Double surname section below.

Actual use of a matriname would involve, first, the women who share one's built-in mtDNA choosing/inventing their new matriname^{[1] [4]} (perhaps like men originally choosing/inventing their surnames, which is described here) and then, one's using it in each new daughter's birth record (or birth certificate).

This use of the mother's matriname would be parallel to and symmetric with the normal use of the father's patriname in each new son's birth record. Note well, this is the above-mentioned "handing down of both" the matriname and the patriname.

It should be mentioned that the patriname is always a single surname, like Smith or Jones, never a double surname like Smith-Jones or Smith Jones^[5] – and similarly the matriname would always be a single surname, never a double surname. And, just as men normally never change their patriname,^[5] so also women would normally never change their matriname. Thus both identity-surnames would be equally stable over the generations.^[1]

Note that one's birth surname is one's legal surname, unless one changes the latter – such as in some purely patrilineal cultures where women traditionally change to their husband's patriname at marriage, as described in Married and maiden names and in Name change.

Here is a specific example to illustrate and summarize these concepts: the father and sons in a nuclear family have the very-familiar patriname Smith while the mother and daughters have the matriname Momline as their own (equally stable) identity-surname.

This section has focused on the single surname, for simplicity and clarity, before covering the resulting double surname in the next section.

Double surname

Double surname systems which combine a matriname with a patriname (in either order, and with/without a hyphen) – thus providing the above-mentioned gender symmetry – are as follows: matriname patriname, matriname-patriname, patriname matriname, and patriname-matriname. Three of the four possibilities are used together in the example below. Such double surnames were proposed^[1] in the book The Seven Daughters of Eve; and an actual case from England, with the family matriname Phythian, is thoroughly demonstrated and discussed in a "feature" article which is available online.^[6]

As a specific example of these double surnames, let the matrinames be Mamaname and Momline and let the patrinames be Smith and Jones. The mother (with birth double surname Momline-Jones, say) and the father (with double birth surname Mamaname Smith, say) keep their legal or birth double surnames unchanged throughout their lives, and agree somehow to give all of their daughters and sons the double birth surname, Smith Momline : The mother hands down the matriname part of her birth surname while, symmetrically, the father hands down the patriname part of his. All sons have the patriname Smith as well as the Y-DNA of their patriline, while all daughters have both the matriname Momline and the mtDNA of their matriline.^[1][6] (Note, most or all cultures in Family name do give all children in a family the same surname or family name, as in this example.)

The family in this specific example could choose to handle its three coexisting legal surnames Momline-Jones, Mamaname Smith, and Smith Momline by all using just one family "usage name" in daily social life at school, with friends and extended family, etc., a concept presented in the article French name, in its subsection Changes of names. (Possible samples of this family's usage name might be: any one of its three coexisting double surnames; or one of its two single surnames Momline or Smith; or Momith or any other invented name.)^[7] (Also, single surname families can use such usage names too, see this^[8] footnote.) The family's three legal surnames, however, must be used in their respective members' own legal documents, and may also be used otherwise such as in the respective members' own professional/vocational lives.

Rather than keeping their own birth or legal surnames, the parents in this example might prefer, at marriage, to change their legal surnames to Smith Momline, the same as their children-to-be, so that their nuclear family would all share this one legal surname.

Of course one's own identity-surname (here, the matriname Momline or the patriname Smith) is always available as one's own usage name, such as in one's vocational life.

This double surname example should be compared with its single surname version at the end of the previous section.

An overall comparison: The gender-symmetric single surnames presented in the previous section enjoy the advantage of being simpler and briefer – but these double surnames do display (and record on legal documents) both matriname and patriname, with both identity-surnames aiding each gender in genealogy work and other historical-record searching.^[1][6][7]

See also

• Family name
• Gender equality
• List of matrilineal or matrilocal societies
• Lucy Stone League (on the topic of identity-surnames).
• Married and maiden names
• Matrilineality
• Patrilineality
• Women's rights

Endnotes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Sykes, Bryan (2001). The Seven Daughters of Eve. W.W. Norton. ISBN 0393020185; pp. 291-2. Bryan Sykes uses "matriname" and states that women adding their own matriname to men's patriname (or "surname" as Sykes calls it) would really help in future genealogy work and historical-record searches. This effectively suggests the double surname presented in this article. Professor Sykes also states on p. 292 that a woman's matriname will be handed down with her mtDNA.
2. ^ Both of the words matriname and patriname also are used in scientific literature many years before Professor Sykes' 2001 book.
3. ^ UN Convention, 1979. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm, "Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women", or CEDAW. Archived at WebCite http://www.webcitation.org/5xc2eRFDv on 1Apr11.
4. ^ Stannard, Una (1977). Mrs Man. San Francisco: Germainbooks. ISBN 091414202X; pp. 334-37.
5. ^ ^{a b} By reading within the Family name article, one notices that the single-surname (or patriname) is indeed used as the identity-surname, such as Smith or Jones, and that the double-surname Smith-Jones is used as two patrinames. Similarly one notices that patrinames (normally) are never changed.
6. ^ ^{a b c} Sarah Louisa Phythian-Adams, 20Aug08. http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2008/08/in_the_name_of , "In the Name of...", a feature article by the author. (To find the family tree etc. of this pioneering matriname double-surname case, search the article for the word "proposal".) Archived at WebCite http://www.webcitation.org/5xc1oy0QR on 1Apr11.
7. ^ ^{a b} Stannard 1977; pp. 334-37 on actual invented surnames and pp. 84-88 on double surnames.
8. ^ If this double surname family and its single surname version at the end of the first section both chose somehow to use a single name as a usage name, whether Momline or Smith or Momith or any other invented single name, then their new friends would have no way of knowing whether either family's birth surnames were actually single or double. In other words, the two versions would look exactly the same to everyone else, except when handling legal documents.

External links

• Lucy Stone League official website (on the topic of identity-surnames)