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Comment by bmarquez | Hacker News Reader

> The data provided included their ID number, name, father’s name

I am curious about the "father's name" part. Is it a security thing in Albania, kind of how "mother's maiden name" used to be a security question for my credit card in the US?

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Seems like a cultural thing where the father's name is part of your own name in official documents.

"a complete name usually consists of a given name; the given name of the individual's father, which is seldom included except in official documents; and a family name"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_name

This is also true in Greece - it originates from either Balkan or Orthodox culture I figure.

It’s called a patronymic, and is also part of the legal name in At least Ukraine and Russia . Interestingly in those countries the last name is something which only really shows up in official documents, instead the patronymic is used in much the same way as a last name is in English. For instance the Russian equivalent of John Doe is Ivan Ivanovich which just means Ivan son of Ivan.

I've made a mistake of using my patronymic as my middle name in US docs. It's actually more like a second last name, as you noted.

Not 100% sure its the same in Albania, but in Serbia it's the de facto middle name for most people. So you need it on most documents. Mother's name also works, but most people still default to the father's name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronymic

"In Albania a complete name usually consists of a given name (Albanian: emri); the given name of the individual's father (Albanian: atësia), which is seldom included except in official documents; and a (most commonly patrilineal) family name or surname (Albanian: mbiemri)."

The father's name is used to distinguish people that have the same name. For example you would say Max Webber [of] John. Of course, birthdays are also used.

> Max Webber [of] John

Kind of like Johnson.

It's called a patronymic -- it's used in formal address and if you read Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy you'll hear the characters always use the patronymic with each other if they have a formal relationship. They'll say "Sofia Semyonovna" every single time, not just once. You can't say it's a "middle name" or a "second last name" really, it's its own thing.

It's more like a middle name, in the sense that it is used in official documents to distinguish people who have the same first and last name.

Other countries have similar mechanisms, I remember when I was living in Brazil I had to provide nome da mãe (name of the mother) and nome do pai (name of the father) to get some documents done.

It’s not unusual: in Israel the names of your parents are written in your ID.

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