In some parts of Western society, it’s a common enough practice for a son to be named after his father. The son’s name takes a suffix of “Junior,” (rarely II or 2nd), if this continues for another generation the grandson takes a suffix of “3rd” or “III.”
Is there an equivalent practice to name a woman after her own mother?
Please keep royalty of different dynasties or houses out of the discussion. (Queen Elizabeth II is not the daughter of QE 1, so she is not relevant to my question.)
Obviously, just as a boy may be named after his father, a girl may be named after her mother, and a lot of cases of this have happened over history. But the presumption was that when the daughter reached adulthood, she would marry and therefore take her new husband’s surname, avoiding the possibility of two adults with the same name. (To forestall objections: yeah, this is very much chauvinst; I’m reporting attitudes from a chauvinist time.)
The idea that a woman might have a career of her own as a single woman, and therefore need to distinguish herself from her namesake in adult life, is therefore fairly new, and no social customs have grown up to cover it.
I do recall one case – without details of who and what – where a woman was formally “Jane Doe Jr.,” being the daughter of “John Doe and Jane Doe Sr.,” and used that as her formal name. But that’s a universe of one, not statistically useful.
Continuing the noble Earl’s hijack (in violation of the request in the OP) to correct a misapprehension, the proper custom in the U.K. was to refer to Prince Philip’s wife as “the Queen” (as being the Queen Regnant, the monarch of the country), and George VI’s widow as “Queen Elizabeth,” with “the Queen Mother” added when required for clarity.
There are matrilineal societies—such as the Dravidians of South India—but the Anglo world of English speakers has long been patrilineal. That may be gradually changing now, but I don’t see any evidence that anyone is adjusting the Jr./III system. Maybe it doesn’t matter enough anymore that anyone would think much about it.
Agree with the posters who suggested that the custom just never got going in the language.
Possibly because even if a woman was desirable for her money, he SON would be first in line to carry on the wealth, and he probalby woudln’t have her name. if you’re a girl, the buck stops with you so why have a junior?
I took a Latin class junior year of high school, and we were told that the Romans actually did something like this. All the female children in a household would be given the same name. If there were two, the older one would be (say) Portia major and Portia menor. If it was three or more, they got into numbers. Not quite the same, but close. Heck, this might be why the custom doesn’t exist now. Sounds pretty sucky to me.
I have personally known a couple of women who were named after their mothers (same first, middle, and last names). Neither of the daughters used a suffix of any kind. The mothers didn’t either. HTH.
The Roman system of naming was, if anything, even more patriarchal than ours. Men had Praenomen (given names like Gaius, Marcus, Lucius, etc.), Nomen (family names, the equilivent of our surnames; examples include Julius, Pompeius, Tullius, etc.), and Cognomen (identifier of which branch of your family you belonged to; examples include Caesar, Sulla, Nero, etc.).
Women received a feminized version of their father’s Nomen as their name. They did not normally possess Praenomen or Cognomen. If there was more than one girl, they would be distinguished by order of birth.
Ex. If your father is Gaius Julius Caesar, your name would be Julia. If you’re the eldest of three daughters, you’d be Julia Major, and Julia Minor and Julia Tertia would come after you. Became very confusing.
This system was breaking down by the early Imperial period, though, so this is mostly applicable to the Republic. By the medieval age girls were generally given individual names, though middle names did not come into vogue until very recently.
The roman numerals behind Queen Elizabeth’s name identify which reigning monarch of that name she is (in this case, #2) and have nothing to do with the personal naming system.
