The father's child or the mother's child?

In the Yizkor Prayer whenever the name of the deceased is mentioned, it is given in the following form: The deceased's Hebrew name followed by "ben", "son of", or "bat", "daughter of;" then, in the Ahskenazi siddurim, the deceased's father's Hebrew name; in the sefardic and Chabad rite, the deceased's mother's Hebrew name. To expand: Ruven and Shlomit were the parents of Yehoshua, who was the father of Levy and Dinah. Yehoshua, unfortunately, passes away. In the Ashkenazic Tradition, they would refer to him as "Yehoshua ben Reuven;" in the Sefardic Tradition, they would refer to him as "Yehoshua ben Shlomit." For inscription on the matzeiva, everyone agrees that the father's name is used.

This last Pesach, a family member asked me whay this is so. She used to say Yizkor from the ArtScroll SIddur, which uses the Ashkenazi formula but this year she davened out of Nusach Ari siddur and noticed this difference. This led me to investigate and I learned some interesting things.

First, in my experience the kvittlach are usually writen with the father's name except by Chabad, where they are written with the mother's name, consistent with the practice in the yizkor. Many years ago I saw a reason in the name of R. Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev. He explained that in tefilla we generally have a principle that it is important to be as specific as possible. Since the mother's name identifies a person more specifically than the father's name (i.e. it is possible that the father was someone else but the mother is more securely known), the mother's name is used.

The same argument is turned around by Mikdash Melech (p.84) to support the implication of the Zohar in Lech Lecha (1:84,1) that the mother's name is used. This, he explains is because this principle only applies to mortal human beings who don't really know who the father might have been. However, after a person's death, in Heaven they know. As such in memorial prayers the father's name is used.

See also Kaf Hachaim 284:37.

It is interesting then that in the notes to Alter Rebbe's Siddur, he is quoted as wondering why the custom is this way because usually we use the father's name...

The source to this is in Sefer Chassidim. "He who gets benefit from money that the departed left over within the year of the demise should say, 'and He is merciful, will atone for the sin that I derive benefit from the money of peloni the son of peloni...(using the father's name)". In his notes, R. Reuven Margolius brings a proof that the father's name should be used in a cemetery from the following passage in Brochos 18b.

The father of Samuel had some money belonging to orphans deposited with him. When he died, Samuel was not with him, and they called him, 'The son who consumes the money of orphans'. So he went after his father to the cemetery, and said to them [the dead]. I am looking for Abba.  They said to him: There are many Abbas here. I want Abba b. Abba, he said. They replied: There are also several Abbas b. Abba here. He then said to them: I Want Abba b. Abba the father of Samuel; where is he?

He also suggests that, as Ramban explains in the beginning of Tazria, since the "form"  ( identified by Rambam as the soul) comes from the father (and the "matter" from the mother), a person should be identified by the father (see Panim Yafos at the end of Bahaaloscha).

We, therefore have many sources suggesting that the father's name should be used but the custom of Sefardic Jews and Chabad is to use the mother's name. It is interesting that among the Ashkenazim, it was common in the 17-9th century to identify people by the mother's name, for example, R. Yair Bacharach, who wrote Chavas Yair, literally Chaya's Yair, calling himself by his gradmother's name, Chaya (but he also wrote the unpublished Makor Chaim), or the Noda B'Yehuda, who names one of his works, Tsiun L'Nefesh Chaya, after his mother, also named Chaya.

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