Am I right thinking this is sexist?

[startrek90]

Been a long time lurker, trying to learn more about feminism. This seemed off to me and I want to know what you think.

I was talking with my inlaws and some friends recently about my sis who has had a baby boy. My sister has followed our family tradition and given her son his father's name as a middle name (I did the same) and people said how lovely it was to honor the father etc...

We started to talk about girls names and my DH said (in the interests of fairness) he would like to give our daughter my name. Well everyone started to say how vain and distasteful it was and how any daughter would hate it etc...

This seemed off to me. That it's ok to honor a father but to do the same for a mother is wrong. It seems to go hand in hand with not acknowledging mothers on wedding certificates (I had to put my absentee father on instead of the person who raised me and cared for me). I thought this was sexist. Am I right? Or have I not got the right idea?

Ridiculously sexist. I have my mum's name as my middle name, and my sister's middle name is our aunt's name. It's never crossed my mind as weird.

No idea how they handle the lunch issues.

Nicknames. For example, Vice-President Biden's late son, who was III, was called Beau.

Although in the South where I am from, something like Little Bill would not be unknown, and still called that even though as an adult he might be a foot taller than Big Bill.

That makes sense Seneca!

We have three people in my family with the same first name (two of them also share a surname). We have two people with the same first, middle and surnames, whereas another has two different first names.

I think anyone opting to use anyone else's name as a middle name would be met with tears of relief

My brother is the 10th generation of our family with the exact same name as his father. This happens in all branches of my dad's family, so one branch of the family are "old Bill", "young Bill", "wee Bill" and "littlest Bill", another are "big John", "little John", etc.

It is very sexist to object to the same tradition being used for boys AND girls. Nobody in my family objected to my parents giving me my mum's middle name, or to her mum giving her the same middle name. My sister has the same middle name as my grandma (dad's mum), my dd1 has my first name as her middle name, and dd2 has my middle name as her middle name (which is also my mum's middle name, and dp's mum's first name, so everybody's thrilled at being honoured)

Whirlpool you have it right. We the first son has his fathers name as a middle name and my DH wants to do the same in the female line ??

i know of families that have a girls name handed down, there is a 'Theresa' in every generation, not necessarily daughter to a Theresa though.

I know plenty of women who share a first or middle name with their mother.

I know a family where all 4 daughters have their mother's middle name as their middle name. And the son? Married a girl with that middle name. True story! (None of the grandaughters have the name!)

I know a woman who is an honest to goodness Mom's Name, jr. She was born in the 1940s, her mother didnt change her surname , and gave her daughter the exact same name, with the Jr. added on the birth certificate, not just used as a social clarifier.

i think giving your son his father's same complete name, jr, is complete laziness. i also associate it with very young and unstable marriages, seems like a common attempted latching mechanism. Or associate it with posh types, which in the US even use III, and IV to designate grandsons and great grandsons with the same name too.