patronymy

Noun

patronymy (countable and uncountable, plural patronymies)

1. The practice of naming children after their fathers.
   • Neither of the two other Rodolfi in the oath can be Rodolfo di Andrea, it should he added, for they have other patronymies; and there are almost no other Rodolfi in the documents.1998, Chris Wickham, Community and Clientele in Twelfth-century Tuscany, →ISBN
   • The practice of women taking their husbands' names has been critiqued but little discussion of the impact of patronymy on children has occurred.2007, Anne Lorene Chambers, Misconceptions, →ISBN
2. A son's name which is derived from his father's name.
   • Masculine patronymies commonly terminate in ides, which is added to the stem of the proper name— as Priamides, Cecropides (from Cecrops).1862, Leonhard Schmitz, Grammar of the Latin language, page 168
   • In the Hanan (Ananus or Annas) family of high priests (first century CE) recurrent names are Hanan (Ananus), a patronymy repeated for three generations, and Matthias.2005, Rāḥēl Ḥak̲lîlî, Jewish Funerary Customs, Practices And Rites In The Second Temple Period, →ISBN
3. An extended family grouping centered around the father's family.
   • It was a hierarchical group which consisted of concentric 'circles which formed patronymies of the first, second and tertiary order. A totality of patronymies made up a Patriarchal Clan.1986, James George Frazer, Marriage and Worship in Early Societies - Volume 2, page xx
   • However, the sib and the joint family are two social units differing totally in their structure. For this reason the patronymy must be borne in mind here. As M. O. Kosven writes, the patronymy is a group of families, joint or nuclear, that came into being as the result of segmentation of a single...1978, Soviet Anthropology and Archeology: - Volume 17, page 5