Re: WHy do people {and animals} pass names down to other members of their famil

Dear Lolli-pop-lover-2000,

	According to the article by Elsdon C. Smith (excerpted from her 
book, American Surnames) from the genealogy.com site  
http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/18_smith.html  
states that surnames 
(last names for us Americans) resulted from commerce and trade, where many 
different people had to be identified individually.  Surnames resulted from 
one or a combination of the following sources.

1.From the Father's Name or other Relationships (Patronymics) 
2.From Occupation or Office (Occupational Names) 
3.From Description of Action (Nicknames) 
4.From Village Names or Landscape Features (Place Names)

These means of identification were then passed on to offspring to identify 
who was part of a particular family.  Identification, family pride, and 
direct links to ancestry are the reasons the names were past on, and it 
gives us the ability to trace our ancestry by following our family name.  
If you do look at genealogy.com, you will see it is a very big deal to many 
people to know where they came from!  This ability to track ancestry is 
also why names are passed on with horses (and dogs and other animals).  
This is to show bloodlines and sometimes what stable they come from.  This 
can help in tracking of both abilities (fast, good breeder, etc.) as well 
as defects (genetic disease, conformation problems, etc).  I'll give you 
two quick examples.

I have two registered Alaskan Malamutes named Kayla and Balou.  But to the 
AKC they are Goldust's Xinging Princess and Goldust's Xilver Bear.  The X 
is pronounced as an S and comes from their mother Xadie (pronounced 
"Sadie").  All of Xadie's offspring have an X in their name as a way to 
designate them as from her.  This isn't required but is a breeder 
preference.  Goldust is the kennel and designates that they are all 
descendants from Goldust's foundation bitch, who's AKC name is from another 
kennel, where the line started.  It gets a little confusing, and frequently 
there are no hard and fast rules, which makes it more confusing.  The names 
are only supposed to be clues to help find the lineage.  However, if a 
genetic problem such as hip-displasia were to crop up in a number of 
offspring, we could hopefully trace to where they first showed and no 
longer continue that line of breeding.  (Unfortunately, this is not a 
common enough practice and is shown in the high number of genetic problems 
in purebred animals).

However, sometimes there are hard and fast rules.  The rare horse breed, 
the Canadian Horse (or "Le Cheval Canadien") was very popular in the 1800's 
but nearly became extinct in the middle of this century.  8 stallions and 
some mares that were deemed pure were saved and established in a breeding 
program.  So there are only 8 bloodlines for this wonderful breed.  
Therefore, because of the fragility of the breed, the registered names are 
very specific in nature.  This includes the stallions name, frequently the 
bloodline, an actual registration number, and the given name must start 
with that year's letter.  For example (and I may be wrong on the 
year/letter) 1990 was Z, so all of the registered Canadians had the last, 
given name that started with Z.  (I was unable to find the exact rules in 
time for this letter).  For more info on The Canadian Horse, Cherry Creek 
Canadians 
http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/cdnhorse/CCC.htm) is a good place 
to find descriptions and links.

As for you searching your mare's history, the Thoroughbred Pedigree Query 
at http://owl.netscout.com/pedigree/

may help as well as other links from the TB Reference Library at

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/eross/TRL.htm.  Another good place to 
find other people/sites that can help is the Equine Pedigree Web Ring at  
http://www.pedigroup.com/epw/. 
 I hope this wasn't too long and that you 
are successful in both your lineage search and showing.
BK