Curiously, in the last few months in the U.S. I've met a Tamar and an Esther, both women given family names that were drawn from the bible.

Funny enough, I think it’s common for the female middle name to be a mom/grandma/aunt name.

Is it a specific cultural thing I wonder

It's apparently not an uncommon tradition in several areas of the world to either have either the first or middle name be shared, and then a unique name for the unmatched one (e.g. John Alan Doe, John James Doe, John Matthew Doe - Alan John Doe, James John Doe, Matthew John Doe).

My son was born in a country with doesn't write those in a birth certificate. When we went back, guess what -- they still added it by deriving it from my name.

Not every society wants to be modern.

Modern society cuts family ties which is a lot of times not so great, but on the other hand it saves lots of people from abusive relationships.

Once you can leave abusive parents or siblings, whole world of opportunities opens. Then again on the other hand not everyone can deal with such a freedom.

Yet still I am personally supportive of modern approaches where people can choose their destiny and not being tied to a family legacy.

I'd rather see the name of the father be stuck to the kid so if he's a failure, everyone knows who failed him.

Therefore, you just invite confusing answers and useless discussions in your reply.

So while there is a bias towards mother custody of the kids (around 2/3), there is still 1/3 of the kids where it is not the case.

Also, not having full custody of kids doesn't mean the father is leaving completely from the kids life. More often than not the kids need to stay with one parent because job and cost of living forces them to be more regionally apart (only 37% of kids living in same town). That doesn't mean the father do not see the kids in the weekends/holidays nor contribute financially to study.

So the reality is way more nuanced than you make it out to be in a small comment.

Why do you frame it as only fathers can fail children? Or only men can do wrong? Women can pay for studies as well, and have just as much duty to their children.

Sorry to bring up race but it’s the US and the SES is too highly correlated to ignore these in a data conversation and we all do things slightly differently roughly by race/background, there’s no monoculture in the US

I used rich as shorthand placeholder of blue blood, noble, famous and rich. Not everyone who is rich is noble and noble doesn’t mean they are rich.

I know a lot of people that just go by their middle names in this scenario. Even my brother was named like this and the intent from the beginning was he’d go by his middle name.

I think maximum pompousness goes to those that make sure you know they’re a third or fourth. If I meet you at a cocktail party and will never meet you again, don’t introduce yourself as William H Gates the Third, just say Bill.

Also, IV is really quite rare for boys too. Junior still super common.

How does that work when they’re 60 with grandkids?

My first and middle names are John and Richard. A couple of times on trips to the US people have read my initials as 'Jr'. Very surprising the first time! Has never happened to me in the UK.

On some forms in the US, it's listed as a suffix. Some agencies enforce it, others do not (SSA does not, for example). And colloquially, when"Senior" dies, the son often stops using "Junior" (though that's not a legal change).

UK, Can, and AUS are similar, but not exactly the same as the US. And NSW in AUS complicates matters by outright prohibiting roman numberals are Jnr/Snr suffixes. Mexico has more restrictions due to the mothers-last-name, fathers-last-name naming convention.

Personally, I dig the Nordic and Arabic "x, son of y, son of z, son of..." patterns.

Long obsolete except in Iceland.

But your name might get mangled in some states if it doesn’t fit, same as it might in the US if some system doesn’t properly handle, e.g., multiple middle names or special punctuation.

And it's not even part of his legal name.

> How does that work when they’re 60 with grandkids?

They get called "grandpa" like everyone else with grandchildren.

Before the Acts of Union of 1707, England and Scotland were not united into one kingdom, but two kingdoms that shared the same king under a personal union.

Or both: the family names having been chosen originally from biblical names, but not continuing for that reason.

I'm a David, and there were many Davids in my University intake year, but I suspect that has less to do with the Bible and more to do with mothers of a certain age range having things for the Davids Bowie or Essex (or both! - quite possible in my mother's case).