Renzo Carriero (UniTO and CCA)

Work-in-Progress seminars

In the name of the father? Social norms and children’s surnames in Italy

Abstract: Transmitting the paternal surname to children is a long-standing custom in most patrilineal societies and a clear symbol of persistent gender inequality. Despite its relevance, sociological research has largely overlooked the issue of children’s surnames. To address this research gap, in this article we investigated the propensity to give children both parents’ surnames (i.e., a double surname) in the Italian context. Italy is an interesting case study as the article of the civil code that assigned the paternal surname to newborns by default was declared unconstitutional in 2022 by the Constitutional Court and now children are allowed to take a double surname as a rule, unless the parents agree otherwise. However, it remains unclear how widely this practice will spread. Drawing on the diffusion of innovations theory and social norms theory, we conducted two survey experiments to examine the role of social norms—understood as empirical and normative expectations— in promoting or hindering the adoption of the double surname. Results from the first experiment indicate that empirical expectations have a stronger influence than normative ones. The second experiment confirms this but shows that the effect depends on the reference network considered (i.e., “most people” vs. “relatives and friends”). These findings highlight the importance of changing empirical expectations to encourage the adoption of the double surname, ultimately promoting greater gender equality in family naming practices.