In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's
personal name
A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known ...
that indicates one's family, tribe or community.
Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name, as the forename, or at the end; the number of surnames given to an individual also varies. As the surname indicates
genetic inheritance, all members of a
family unit may have identical surnames or there may be variations; for example, a woman might marry and have a child, but later remarry and have another child by a different father, and as such both children could have different surnames. It is common to see two or more words in a surname, such as in compound surnames. Compound surnames can be composed of separate names, such as in traditional
Spanish culture
The culture of ''Spain'' is based on a variety of historical influences, primarily based on the culture of ancient Rome, Spain being a prominent part of the Greco-Roman world for centuries, the very name of Spain comes from the name that the Rom ...
, they can be
hyphenated together, or may contain
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the Word stem, stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy'' ...
es.
Using names has been documented in even the oldest historical records. Examples of surnames are documented in the 11th century by the
baron
Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or k ...
s in England. English surnames began as a way of identifying a certain aspect of that individual, such as by trade, father's name, location of birth, or physical features, and were not necessarily inherited. By 1400 most English families, and those from Lowland Scotland, had adopted the use of hereditary surnames.
Definition of a surname
In the Anglophonic world, a surname is commonly referred to as the last name because it is usually placed at the end of a person's full name, after any given name. In many parts of Asia and in some parts of Europe and Africa, the family name is placed before a person's given name. In most
Spanish-speaking
Hispanophone and Hispanic refers to anything relating to the Spanish language (the Hispanosphere).
In a cultural, rather than merely linguistic sense, the notion of "Hispanophone" goes further than the above definition. The Hispanic culture is th ...
and
Portuguese-speaking
Lusophones ( pt, Lusófonos) are peoples that speak Portuguese as a native or as common second language and nations where Portuguese features prominently in society. Comprising an estimated 270 million people spread across 10 sovereign countries a ...
countries, two surnames are commonly used or, in some families, three or even more, often because of family claims to nobility.
Surnames have not always existed and are still not universal in some cultures. The tradition has arisen separately in different cultures around the world. In Europe, the concept of surnames became popular in the
Roman Empire and expanded throughout the
Mediterranean and Western Europe as a result. During the Middle Ages, that practice died out as Germanic, Persian and other influences took hold. During the late Middle Ages surnames gradually re-emerged, first in the form of
bynames, which typically indicated an individual's occupation or area of residence, and gradually evolving into modern surnames. In China, surnames have been the norm since at least the 2nd century BC.
A family name is typically a part of a person's
personal name
A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known ...
and, according to law or custom, is passed or given to children from at least one of their parents' family names. The use of family names is common in most cultures around the world, but each culture has its own rules as to how the names are formed, passed, and used. However, the style of having both a family name (surname) and a given name (forename) is far from universal (see
§History below). In many cultures, it is common for people to have one name or
mononym, with some cultures not using family names. In most
Slavic countries
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
and in
Greece,
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
and
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
, for example, there are different family name forms for male and female members of the family. Issues of family name arise especially on the passing of a name to a newborn child, the adoption of a common family name on marriage, the renunciation of a family name, and the changing of a family name.
Surname laws vary around the world. Traditionally in many European countries for the past few hundred years, it was the custom or the law for a woman, upon marriage, to use her husband's surname and for any children born to bear the father's surname. If a child's paternity was not known, or if the
putative father denied paternity, the newborn child would have the surname of the mother. That is still the custom or law in many countries. The surname for children of married parents is usually inherited from the father.
[Kelly, 99 W Va L Rev at 10; see id. at 10 n 25 (The custom of taking the father's surname assumes that the child is born to parents in a "state-sanctioned marriage". The custom is different for children born to unmarried parents.). Cited i]
Doherty v. Wizner, Oregon Court of Appeals
(2005) In recent years, there has been a trend towards equality of treatment in relation to family names, with women being not automatically required, expected or, in some places, even forbidden, to take the husband's surname on marriage, with the children not automatically being given the father's surname. In this article, both family name and surname mean the
patrilineal surname, which is handed down from or inherited from the father, unless it is explicitly stated otherwise. Thus, the term "maternal surname" means the ''patrilineal'' surname that one's mother inherited from either or both of her parents. For a discussion of ''
matrilineal'' ('mother-line') surnames, passing from mothers to daughters, see
matrilineal surname.
The study of proper names (in family names, personal names, or places) is called
onomastics
Onomastics (or, in older texts, onomatology) is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An ''orthonym'' is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study.
Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, w ...
. A
one-name study is a collection of vital and other biographical data about all persons worldwide sharing a particular surname.
History
Origins
While the use of given names to identify individuals is attested in the oldest historical records, the advent of surnames is relatively recent.
[ ''Note: content available by subscription only. The first page of content is available vi]
Google Scholar
'. Many cultures have used and continue to use additional descriptive terms in identifying individuals. These terms may indicate personal attributes, location of origin, occupation, parentage, patronage, adoption, or clan affiliation. These descriptors often developed into fixed clan identifications that in turn became family names as we know them today.
In China, according to legend, family names started with Emperor
Fu Xi in 2000 BCE.
His administration standardised the naming system in order to facilitate census-taking, and the use of census information. Originally,
Chinese surname
Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, and among overseas Chinese communities around the world such as Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese names begin with surnames, unlike the ...
s were derived matrilineally,
[linguistics.berkeley.edu (2004). http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~rosemary/55-2004-names.pdf, "Naming practices". A PDF file with a section on "Chinese naming practices (Mak et al., 2003)". Archived at WebCite on 1Apr11.] although by the time of the
Shang dynasty (1600 to 1046 BCE) they had become patrilineal.
[ (The first few sentences are accessible online via JSTOR at https://www.jstor.org/stable/2743616, i.e., p.753.)] Chinese women do not change their names upon marriage. They can be referred to either by their full birth names or by their husband's surname plus the word for wife. In the past, women's given names were often not publicly known, and women were referred in official documents by their family name plus the character "Shi" and when married by their husband's surname, their birth surname, and the character "Shi".
In the Middle East surnames have been and are still of great importance. An early form of tribal
nisbas is attested among
Amorite and
Aramean tribes in the early
Bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloi ...
and
Iron ages as early as 1800 BCE.
In
ancient Iran, surnames were used, but it is likely that most of them belonged to the aristocracy, nobility and military leaders. Among the most famous historical houses were the
Achaemenids, the
Arsacids, and the
Sasanians. These nobilities would have been recognised by their seals, coats of arms and banners;
Shahnameh or the Book of Kings, provides a good source of information about them.
In the early
Islamic
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the mai ...
period (640–900 CE) and the
Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
, the use of
patronymics is well attested. The famous scholar
Rhazes () is referred to as "al-Razi" (lit. the one from Ray) due to his origins from the city of
Ray
Ray may refer to:
Fish
* Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea
* Ray (fish fin anatomy), a bony or horny spine on a fin
Science and mathematics
* Ray (geometry), half of a line proceeding from an initial point
* Ray (g ...
, Iran. In the
Levant, surnames were in use as early as the
High Middle Ages and it was common for people to derive their surname from a distant ancestor, and historically the surname would be often preceded with 'ibn' or 'son of'. Arab family names often denote either one's
tribe,
profession, a famous ancestor, or the place of origin; but they weren't universal. For example,
Hunayn ibn Ishaq (fl. 850 CE) was known by the nisbah "al-'Ibadi", a federation of Arab Christian tribes that lived in
Mesopotamia prior to the advent of
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
.
Hamdan ibn al-Ash'ath (fl. 874 CE), the founder of
Qarmatian Isma'ilism, was surnamed "Qarmat", an
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...
word which probably meant "red-eyed" or "Short-legged".
In Ancient Greece, as far back as the
Archaic Period clan names and
patronymics ("son of") were also common, as in
Aristides as Λῡσῐμᾰ́χου – a genitive singular form meaning son of Lysimachus. For example,
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...
was known as
''Heracleides'', as a supposed descendant of
Heracles, and by the dynastic name
''Karanos''/''Caranus'', which referred to the founder of the
dynasty to which he belonged. These patronymics are already attested for many characters in the works of
Homer. At other times formal identification commonly included the place of origin.
In none of these cases, though, were these names considered essential parts of the person's name, nor were they explicitly inherited in the manner that is common in many cultures today.
Over the course of the Roman Republic and the later Empire, naming conventions went through multiple changes. (''See
Roman naming conventions.'') The
''nomen'', the name of the
gens
In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; plural: ''gentes'' ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same Roman naming conventions#Nomen, nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a ''stirps'' (p ...
(tribe) inherited patrilineally, is thought to have already been in use by 650 BCE.
[ Benet Salway, "What's in a Name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700", in '' Journal of Roman Studies'', vol. 84, pp. 124–145 (1994).] The ''nomen'' was to identify group kinship, while the ''
praenomen
The ''praenomen'' (; plural: ''praenomina'') was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the ''dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the bi ...
'' (forename; plural ''praenomina'') was used to distinguish individuals within the group. Female ''praenomina'' were less common, as women had reduced public influence, and were commonly known by the feminine form of the ''nomen'' alone. Some women were distinguished from relatives later on by the use of ''major''/''minor'', or by an ordinal number. Even for men, there were only a few commonly used ''praenomina'', with some falling out of use and very few new names gaining popularity. During the Republic, 99% of Roman citizens shared only 17 ''praenomina''.
Furthermore, eldest sons were frequently given the same ''praenomen'' as their father. This led to confusion between members of the same ''gens''. Therefore, from the 5th to the 2nd centuries BCE the use of
''cognomina'' arose, beginning in noble patrician families. These were originally personal names, frequently physical features. For example, the ''cognomen'' of Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō meant "nose". Before too long, ''cognomina'' were again inherited and ceased to be personal distinguishers. In the later centuries of the Empire, there was a proliferation of
''agnomina'', a fourth name placed after the ''cognomen''.
Medieval Era and beyond
Later with the gradual influence of Greek and
Christian culture throughout the Empire, Christian religious names were sometimes put in front of traditional ''cognomina'', but eventually people reverted to single names.
By the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, family names were uncommon in the
Eastern Roman Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...
. In Western Europe, where Germanic culture dominated the aristocracy, family names were almost non-existent. They would not significantly reappear again in Eastern Roman society until the 10th century, apparently influenced by the familial affiliations of the Armenian military aristocracy.
The practice of using family names spread through the Eastern Roman Empire and gradually into Western Europe, although it was not until the modern era that family names came to be explicitly inherited as they are today.
Medieval Spain used a patronymic system. For example, Álvaro, a son of Rodrigo, would be named Álvaro Rodríguez. His son, Juan, would not be named Juan Rodríguez, but Juan Álvarez. Over time, many of these patronymics became family names, and they are some of the most common names in the Spanish-speaking world today. Other sources of surnames are personal appearance or habit, e.g. Delgado ("thin") and Moreno ("dark"); geographic location or ethnicity, e.g. Alemán ("German"); and occupations, e.g. Molinero ("miller"), Zapatero ("shoe-maker") and Guerrero ("warrior"), although occupational names are much more often found in a shortened form referring to the trade itself, e.g. Molina ("mill"), Guerra ("war"), or Zapata (archaic form of ''zapato'', "shoe").
In England, the introduction of family names is generally attributed to the preparation of the
Domesday Book in 1086,
following the
Norman conquest. Evidence indicates that surnames were first adopted among the feudal nobility and gentry, and slowly spread to other parts of society. Some of the early Norman nobility who arrived in England during the Norman conquest differentiated themselves by affixing 'de' (of) before the name of their village in France. This is what is known as a territorial surname, a consequence of feudal landownership. By the 14th century, most
English and most
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
people used surnames and in Wales following unification under Henry VIII in 1536.
A four-year study led by the
University of the West of England, which concluded in 2016, analysed sources dating from the 11th to the 19th century to explain the origins of the surnames in the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles (O ...
.
The study found that over 90% of the 45,602 surnames in the dictionary are native to Britain and Ireland, with the most common in the UK being
Smith,
Jones
Jones may refer to:
People
*Jones (surname), a common Welsh and English surname
*List of people with surname Jones
*Jones (singer), a British singer-songwriter
Arts and entertainment
* Jones (''Animal Farm''), a human character in George Orwell' ...
,
Williams,
Brown,
Taylor,
Davies, and
Wilson
Wilson may refer to:
People
* Wilson (name)
** List of people with given name Wilson
** List of people with surname Wilson
* Wilson (footballer, 1927–1998), Brazilian manager and defender
* Wilson (footballer, born 1984), full name Wilson Ro ...
. The findings have been published in the ''Oxford English Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland'', with project leader Professor Richard Coates calling the study "more detailed and accurate" than those before.
He elaborated on the origins: "Some surnames have origins that are occupational – obvious examples are Smith and Baker. Other names can be
linked to a place, for example, Hill or Green, which relates to a
village green. Surnames that are 'patronymic' are those which originally enshrined the father's name – such as
Jackson, or
Jenkinson. There are also names where the origin describes the original bearer such as Brown,
Short, or Thin – though Short may in fact be an ironic 'nickname' surname for a tall person."
Modern era
During the modern era, many cultures around the world adopted family names, particularly for administrative reasons, especially during the age of European expansion and particularly since 1600. Notable examples include the Netherlands (1795–1811), Japan (1870s), Thailand (1920), and Turkey (1934). The structure of the
Japanese name
in modern times consist of a family name (surname) followed by a given name, in that order. Nevertheless, when a Japanese name is written in the Roman alphabet, ever since the Meiji era, the official policy has been to cater to Western expecta ...
was formalized by the government as ''family name'' + ''given name'' in 1868. Nonetheless, the use of surnames is not universal: Icelanders, Burmese, Javanese, and many people groups in East Africa do not use family names.
Family names sometimes change or are replaced by non-family-name surnames under political pressure to avoid persecution. Examples are the cases with
Chinese Indonesians and
Chinese Thais after migration there during the 20th century or the Jews who fled to different European countries to avoid persecution from the Nazis during World War II. Other ethnic groups have been forced to change or adapt surnames to conform with the cultural norms of the dominant culture, such as in the case of slaves and indigenous people of the Americas.
Family name discrimination against women
King
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
of England (reigned 1509–1547) ordered that marital births be recorded under the surname of the father.
In England and cultures derived from there, there has long been a tradition for a woman to change her surname upon marriage from her
birth name to her husband's family name. (See
Maiden and married names
When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" is also used ...
.)
In the Middle Ages, when a man from a lower-status family married an only daughter from a higher-status family, he would often adopt the wife's family name. In the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain, bequests were sometimes made contingent upon a man's changing (or hyphenating) his family name, so that the name of the
testator continued.
The United States followed the naming customs and practices of English common law and traditions until recent times. The first known instance in the United States of a woman insisting on the use of her birth name was that of
Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 – October 18, 1893) was an American orator, abolitionist and suffragist who was a vocal advocate for and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a colle ...
in 1855, and there has been a general increase in the rate of women using their birth name. Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, traditional naming practices (writes one commentator) were recognized as "com
nginto conflict with current sensitivities about children's and women's rights". Those changes accelerated a shift away from the interests of the parents to a focus on the best interests of the child. The law in this area continues to evolve today mainly in the context of paternity and custody actions.
Naming conventions in the US have gone through periods of flux, however, and the 1990s saw a decline in the percentage of name retention among women. As of 2006, more than 80% of American women adopted the husband's family name after marriage.
It is rare but not unknown for an English-speaking man to take his wife's family name, whether for personal reasons or as a matter of tradition (such as among
matrilineal Canadian aboriginal groups, such as the
Haida
Haida may refer to:
Places
* Haida, an old name for Nový Bor
* Haida Gwaii, meaning "Islands of the People", formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands
* Haida Islands, a different archipelago near Bella Bella, British Columbia
Ships
* , a 1 ...
and
Gitxsan). Upon marriage to a woman, men in the United States can change their surnames to that of their wives, or adopt a combination of both names with the federal government, through the
Social Security Administration. Men may face difficulty doing so on the state level in some states.
It is exceedingly rare but does occur in the United States, where a married couple may choose an entirely new last name by going through a legal change of name. As an alternative, both spouses may adopt a
double-barrelled name. For instance, when John Smith and Mary Jones marry each other, they may become known as "John Smith-Jones" and "Mary Smith-Jones". A spouse may also opt to use their birth name as a middle name, and e.g. become known as "Mary Jones Smith". An additional option, although rarely practiced, is the adoption of the last name derived from a blend of the prior names, such as "Simones", which also requires a legal name change. Some couples keep their own last names but give their children hyphenated or combined surnames.
In 1979, the United Nations adopted the ''
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women'' ("CEDAW"), which declared in effect that women and men, and specifically wife and husband, shall have the same rights to choose a "family name", as well as a profession and an occupation.
In some places, civil rights lawsuits or constitutional amendments changed the law so that men could also easily change their married names (e.g., in British Columbia and California).
Québec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...
law permits neither spouse to change surnames.
In France, until 1 January 2005, children were required by law to take the surname of their father. Article 311-21 of the French
Civil code
A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property, family, and obligations.
A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdictions with a civil code, a number of the core ar ...
now permits parents to give their children the family name of either their father, mother, or hyphenation of both – although no more than two names can be hyphenated. In cases of disagreement, both names are used in alphabetical order. This brought France into line with a 1978 declaration by the
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it has 46 member states, with ...
requiring member governments to take measures to adopt equality of rights in the transmission of family names, a measure that was echoed by the United Nations in 1979.
Similar measures were adopted by
West Germany (1976), Sweden (1982),
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark
, establishe ...
(1983), Finland (1985) and Spain (1999). The European Community has been active in eliminating gender discrimination. Several cases concerning discrimination in family names have reached the courts. ''Burghartz v. Switzerland'' challenged the lack of an option for husbands to add the wife's surname to his surname, which they had chosen as the family name when this option was available for women. ''Losonci Rose and Rose v. Switzerland'' challenged a prohibition on foreign men married to Swiss women keeping their surname if this option was provided in their national law, an option available to women. ''Ünal Tekeli v. Turkey'' challenged prohibitions on women using their surname as the family name, an option only available to men. The Court found all these laws to be in violation of the convention.
From 1945 to 2021 in the Czech Republic women by law had to use family names with the ending -ová after the name of their father or husband (so-called ''přechýlení''). This was seen as discriminatory by a part of the public. Since 1 January 2022, Czech women can decide for themselves whether they want to use the feminine or neutral form of their family name.
Patronymic surnames
These are the oldest and most common type of surname.
They may be a first name such as "Wilhelm", a
patronymic such as "
Andersen", a
matronymic such as "
Beaton", or a clan name such as "
O'Brien". Multiple surnames may be derived from a single given name: e.g. there are thought to be over 90 Italian surnames based on the given name "
Giovanni".
[ Hanks, Patrick and Hodges, Flavia. ''A Dictionary of Surnames''. Oxford University Press, 1989. .]
Patronymic surnames can be a parent's name without modification (Ali Mohamed is Mohamed's son), preceded by a modifying word/character (bin Abdulaziz, Mac Donald), or modified by affixes (Stefanović, Petrov, Jones, Olsen, López, Price, Dēmētrópoulos, Fitzgerald). There is a wide range of
family name affixes with a patronymic function.
Patronymic surnames can be actively changing with each generation (Senai Abraham father of Zerezghi Senai father of Afwerki Zerezghi) or derived from historical patronymics but now consistent between generations (as in Sarah Jones whose father is Benjamin Jones, and all her paternal grandfathers surnamed Jones back 200 years).
Patronymics can represent a single generation (Ali Mohamed is Mohamed's son) or multiple generations (Lemlem Mengesha Abraha is Lemlem son of Mengesha son of Abraha, his son could be Tamrat Lemlem Mengesha).
See
Patronymic surname
A patronymic surname is a surname originated from the given name of the father or a patrilineal ancestor. Different cultures have different ways of producing patronymic surnames.
For example, early patronymic Welsh surnames were the result of th ...
for specifics on cultural differences. See
family name affixes for a list of specific prefixes and suffixes with their meanings and associated languages.
Examples
* Patronal from patronage (''Hickman'' meaning Hick's man, where Hick is a pet form of the name Richard) or strong ties of religion ''Kilpatrick'' (follower of
Patrick) or ''Kilbride'' (follower of
Bridget).
*
Patronymics,
matronymics or ancestral, often from a person's given name. e.g., from male name: ''
Richardson
Richardson may refer to:
People
* Richardson (surname), an English and Scottish surname
* Richardson Gang, a London crime gang in the 1960s
* Richardson Dilworth, Mayor of Philadelphia (1956-1962)
Places Australia
*Richardson, Australian Capi ...
'', ''
Stephenson
Stephenson is a medieval patronymic surname meaning "son of Stephen". The earliest public record is found in the county of Huntingdonshire in 1279. There are variant spellings including Stevenson. People with the surname include:
*Ashley Stephen ...
'', ''
Jones
Jones may refer to:
People
*Jones (surname), a common Welsh and English surname
*List of people with surname Jones
*Jones (singer), a British singer-songwriter
Arts and entertainment
* Jones (''Animal Farm''), a human character in George Orwell' ...
'' (Welsh for Johnson), ''
Williams'', ''
Jackson'', ''
Wilson
Wilson may refer to:
People
* Wilson (name)
** List of people with given name Wilson
** List of people with surname Wilson
* Wilson (footballer, 1927–1998), Brazilian manager and defender
* Wilson (footballer, born 1984), full name Wilson Ro ...
'', ''
Thompson'', ''
Benson'', ''
Johnson'', ''
Harris'', ''
Evans'', ''
Simpson'', ''
Willis'', ''
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelv ...
'', ''
Davies'', ''
Reynolds'', ''
Adams
Adams may refer to:
* For persons, see Adams (surname)
Places United States
*Adams, California
*Adams, California, former name of Corte Madera, California
*Adams, Decatur County, Indiana
*Adams, Kentucky
*Adams, Massachusetts, a New England town ...
'', ''
Dawson'', ''
Lewis'', ''
Rogers'', ''
Murphy
Murphy () ( ga, Ua Murchadha) is an Irish surname and the most common surname in the Republic of Ireland.
Origins and variants
The surname is a variant of two Irish surnames: "Ó Murchadha"/"Ó Murchadh" (descendant of "Murchadh"), and "Mac ...
'', ''
Morrow'', ''
Nicholson
Nicholson may refer to:
People
*Nicholson (name), a surname, and a list of people with the name
Places Australia
* Nicholson, Victoria
* Nicholson, Queensland
* Nicholson County, New South Wales
* Nicholson River (disambiguation)
* Nicholson Road ...
'', ''
Robinson'', ''
Powell
Powell may refer to:
People
* Powell (surname)
* Powell (given name)
* Powell baronets, several baronetcies
*Colonel Powell (disambiguation), several military officers
*General Powell (disambiguation), several military leaders
*Governor Powell (di ...
'', ''
Ferguson
Ferguson may refer to:
Places
Canada
* Ferguson Avenue (Hamilton, Ontario)
* Ferguson, British Columbia
* Mount Ferguson (Ontario), a mountain in Temagami, Ontario
United States
*Ferguson, a meteorite fall in North Carolina
* Ferguson, Arkansas ...
'', ''
Davis'', ''
Edwards'', ''
Hudson'', ''
Roberts
Roberts may refer to:
People
* Roberts (given name), a Latvian masculine given name
* Roberts (surname), a popular surname, especially among the Welsh
Places
* Roberts (crater), a lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon
;United Stat ...
'', ''
Harrison'', ''
Watson
Watson may refer to:
Companies
* Actavis, a pharmaceutical company formerly known as Watson Pharmaceuticals
* A.S. Watson Group, retail division of Hutchison Whampoa
* Thomas J. Watson Research Center, IBM research center
* Watson Systems, make ...
'', or female names ''Molson'' (from Moll for Mary), ''
Madison'' (from Maud), ''Emmott'' (from Emma), ''Marriott'' (from Mary) or from a clan name (for those of Scottish origin, e.g., ''
MacDonald
Macdonald, MacDonald or McDonald may refer to:
Organisations
* McDonald's, a chain of fast food restaurants
* McDonald & Co., a former investment firm
* MacDonald Motorsports, a NASCAR team
* Macdonald Realty, a Canadian real estate brokerage f ...
'', ''
Forbes'', ''
Henderson'', ''
Armstrong'', ''
Grant'', ''
Cameron
Cameron may refer to:
People
* Clan Cameron, a Scottish clan
* Cameron (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name)
* Cameron (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name)
;Mononym
* Cam'ron (born 197 ...
'', ''
Stewart'', ''
Douglas'', ''
Crawford'', ''
Campbell'', ''
Hunter
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
'') with "Mac"
Gaelic for son.
Occupational surnames
Occupational
Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any other ...
names include ''
Smith'', ''
Miller'', ''
Farmer'', ''
Thatcher'', ''
Shepherd
A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' 'herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, i ...
'', ''
Potter'', and so on, as well as non-English ones, such as the German ''Eisenhauer'' (iron
hewer, later Anglicized in America as ''
Eisenhower'') or ''
Schneider
Schneider may refer to:
Hospital
* Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel
People
* Schneider (surname)
Companies and organizations
* G. Schneider & Sohn, a Bavarian brewery company
* Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG, the former owner of th ...
'' (tailor) – or, as in English, ''
Schmidt'' (smith). There are also more complicated names based on occupational titles. In England it was common for servants to take a modified version of their employer's occupation or first name as their last name, adding the letter ''s'' to the word, although this formation could also be a
patronymic. For instance, the surname ''
Vickers'' is thought to have arisen as an occupational name adopted by the servant of a vicar,
[Reaney, P.H., and Wilson, R.M. ''A Dictionary of English Surnames.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Rev. 3rd ed. .] while ''
Roberts
Roberts may refer to:
People
* Roberts (given name), a Latvian masculine given name
* Roberts (surname), a popular surname, especially among the Welsh
Places
* Roberts (crater), a lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon
;United Stat ...
'' could have been adopted by either the son or the servant of a man named Robert. A subset of occupational names in English are names thought to be derived from the medieval
mystery plays
Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the represen ...
. The participants would often play the same roles for life, passing the part down to their oldest sons. Names derived from this may include ''
King'', ''
Lord'' and ''Virgin''. The original meaning of names based on medieval occupations may no longer be obvious in modern English.
Toponymic surnames
Location (toponymic, habitation) names derive from the inhabited location associated with the person given that name. Such locations can be any type of settlement, such as homesteads, farms, enclosures, villages, hamlets, strongholds, or cottages. One element of a habitation name may describe the type of settlement. Examples of
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
elements are frequently found in the second element of habitational names. The habitative elements in such names can differ in meaning, according to different periods, different locations, or with being used with certain other elements. For example, the Old English element ''tūn'' may have originally meant "enclosure" in one name, but can have meant "farmstead", "village", "manor", or "estate" in other names.
Location names, or habitation names, may be as generic as "Monte" (Portuguese for "mountain"), "Górski" (Polish for "hill"), or "Pitt" (variant of "pit"), but may also refer to specific locations. "Washington", for instance, is thought to mean "the homestead of the family of Wassa",
[Cottle, Basil. ''Penguin Dictionary of Surnames''. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. No ISBN.] while "Lucci" means "resident of
Lucca".
Although some surnames, such as "London", "Lisboa", or "Białystok" are derived from large cities, more people reflect the names of smaller communities, as in
Ó Creachmhaoil
Ó Creachmhaoil is an Irish surname, often anglicised as Craughwell, Croughwell, Crockwell, and Crowell.
Etymology
''Ó'', in Irish surnames, indicates a grandson or descendant of the person whose given name it precedes (as in ''Ó Briain'': ...
, derived from a village in
County Galway
"Righteousness and Justice"
, anthem = ()
, image_map = Island of Ireland location map Galway.svg
, map_caption = Location in Ireland
, area_footnotes =
, area_total_km2 = ...
. This is thought to be due to the tendency in Europe during the Middle Ages for migration to chiefly be from smaller communities to the cities and the need for new arrivals to choose a defining surname.
[Bowman, William Dodgson. ''The Story of Surnames''. London, George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1932. No ISBN.]
In
Portuguese-speaking countries
The Community of Portuguese Language Countries ( Portuguese: ''Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa''; abbreviated as the CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth (''Comunidade Lusófona''), is an international organization and po ...
, it is uncommon, but not unprecedented, to find surnames derived from names of countries, such as Portugal, França, Brasil, Holanda. Surnames derived from country names are also found in English, such as "England", "Wales", "Spain".
Many
Japanese surnames derive from geographical features; for example, Ishikawa (石川) means "stone river", Yamamoto (山本) means "the base of the mountain", and Inoue (井上) means "above the well".
Arabic names sometimes contain surnames that denote the city of origin. For example, in cases of
Saddam Hussein al Tikriti,
meaning Saddam Hussein originated from
Tikrit, a city in
Iraq. This component of the name is called a ''
nisbah
The Arabic language, Arabic word nisba (; also transcribed as ''nisbah'' or ''nisbat'') may refer to:
* Arabic nouns and adjectives#Nisba, Nisba, a suffix used to form adjectives in Arabic grammar, or the adjective resulting from this formation
**c ...
''.
Examples
* Estate names For those descended from land-owners, the name of their holdings, castle, manor or estate, e.g.
Ernle
Ernle was the surname of an English gentry or landed family descended from the lords of the manor of Earnley in Sussex who derived their surname from the name of the place where their estates lay.
Origins
Onomastic
Onomasticians say that ...
,
Windsor,
Staunton
* Habitation (place) names e.g.,
Burton
Burton, Burtons, or Burton's may refer to:
Companies
* Burton (retailer), a clothing retailer
** Burton's, Abergavenny, a shop built for the company in 1937
**The Montague Burton Building, Dublin a shop built for the company between 1929 and ...
,
Flint,
Hamilton,
London,
Laughton,
Leighton
Leighton may refer to:
Places
In Australia:
* Leighton, Western Australia, a beachside locality
In the United Kingdom:
*Leighton, Cambridgeshire
*Leighton, Cheshire
*Leighton, North Yorkshire
**Leighton Reservoir
* Leighton, Shropshire
*Leighto ...
,
Murray,
Sutton,
Tremblay
* Topographic names (geographical features) e.g.,
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
or
Bridges,
Brook
A brook is a small river or natural stream of fresh water. It may also refer to:
Computing
*Brook, a programming language for GPU programming based on C
*Brook+, an explicit data-parallel C compiler
* BrookGPU, a framework for GPGPU programm ...
or
Brooks,
Bush,
Camp,
Hill,
Lake,
Lee
Lee may refer to:
Name
Given name
* Lee (given name), a given name in English
Surname
* Chinese surnames romanized as Li or Lee:
** Li (surname 李) or Lee (Hanzi ), a common Chinese surname
** Li (surname 利) or Lee (Hanzi ), a Chinese ...
or
Leigh
Leigh may refer to:
Places In England
Pronounced :
* Leigh, Greater Manchester, Borough of Wigan
** Leigh (UK Parliament constituency)
* Leigh-on-Sea, Essex
Pronounced :
* Leigh, Dorset
* Leigh, Gloucestershire
* Leigh, Kent
* Leigh, Sta ...
,
Wood,
Grove
Grove may refer to:
* Grove (nature), a small group of trees
Places
England
*Grove, Buckinghamshire, a village
* Grove, Dorset
* Grove, Herefordshire
* Grove, Kent
* Grove, Nottinghamshire, a village
* Grove, Oxfordshire, a village and civil ...
,
Holmes,
Forest,
Underwood,
Hall
In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gr ...
,
Field,
Stone,
Morley,
Moore
Moore may refer to:
People
* Moore (surname)
** List of people with surname Moore
* Moore Crosthwaite (1907–1989), a British diplomat and ambassador
* Moore Disney (1765–1846), a senior officer in the British Army
* Moore Powell (died c. 1573 ...
,
Perry
Cognominal surnames
This is the broadest class of surnames, encompassing many types of origin. These include names based on appearance such as "Schwartzkopf", "Short", and possibly "Caesar",
and names based on temperament and personality such as "Daft", "Gutman", and "Maiden", which, according to a number of sources, was an English nickname meaning "effeminate".
Acquired and ornamental surnames
Ornamental surnames are made up of names, not specific to any attribute (place, parentage, occupation, caste) of the first person to acquire the name, and stem from the middle class's desire for their own hereditary names like the nobles. They were generally acquired later in history and generally when those without surnames needed them. In 1526, King Frederik I of Denmark-Norway ordered that noble families must take up fixed surnames, and many of them took as their name some element of their coat of arms; for example, the Rosenkrantz (“rose wreath”) family took their surname from a wreath of roses comprising the torse of their arms, and the Gyldenstierne (“golden star”) family took theirs from a 7-pointed gold star on their shield. Subsequently, many middle-class Scandinavian families desired names similar to those of the nobles and adopted “ornamental” surnames as well. Most other naming traditions refer to them as "acquired". They might be given to people newly immigrated, conquered, or converted, as well as those with unknown parentage, formerly enslaved, or from parentage without a surname tradition.
Ornamental surnames are more common in communities that adopted (or were forced to adopt) surnames in the 18th and 19th centuries.
They occur commonly in Scandinavia, among
Sinti and Roma and Jews in Germany and Austria.
Examples include "Steinbach" ("derived from a place called Steinbach"), "Rosenberg" ("rose mountain"), and "Winterstein" (derived from a place called Winterstein). Forced adoption in the 19th century is the source of German, Polish and even Italian ornamental surnames for Latvians such as "Rozentāls (Rosental)" ("rose valley"), "Eizenbaums (Eisenbaum") ("steel wood"), "Freibergs (Freiberg)" ("free mountain").
In some cases, such as
Chinese Indonesians and
Chinese Thais, certain ethnic groups are subject to political pressure to change their surnames, in which case surnames can lose their family-name meaning. For instance, Indonesian business tycoon Liem Swie Liong (林绍良) "indonesianised" his name to
Sudono Salim
Sudono Salim (16 July 1916 – 10 June 2012), also known as Liem Sioe Liong, was a Chinese-born Indonesian banker and businessman. He was the richest individual in Indonesia. He was the founder and chairman of the conglomerate Salim Group bef ...
. In this case, "Liem" (林) was rendered by "Salim", a name of Arabic origin, while "Sudono", a Javanese name with the honorific prefix "su-" (of Sanskrit origin), was supposed to be a rendering of "Swie Liong".
During the era of the
Trans-Atlantic slave trade many Africans lost their native names and were forced by their owners to take the owners' surnames and any given name the owner or slave master desired. In the Americas, the family names of many African-Americans have their origins in slavery (''i.e.''
slave name). Many freed slaves either created family names themselves or adopted the name of their former master.
In regions with a strong religious influence, newly acquired names were often given by the religious leaders as part of naming ceremonies. The religion dictated the type of surname but these are traditionally surnames associated with the religion.
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
ic names often follow the Arabic patronymic naming conventions but include names like Mohamed or ibn Abihi, "son of his father".
Catholic names may have been influenced by the
Saint
In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...
on whose
feast day
The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does ...
the person was christened, for instance
Toussaint and
De Los Santos De Los Santos is a Spanish surname meaning "of the saints". Notable people with the surname include:
*Abel De Los Santos (born 1992), American baseball player
*Alejandro de los Santos (1902–1982), Argentinian football player
*Enyel De Los Santos ...
may have been christened on
All Saints' Day.
As Native Peoples of the Americas were assimilated by the conquering countries, they were often converted to the dominant religion, being christened with associated names (i.e. de la Cruz). Others maintained a historical name, title, or byname of an ancestor translated into the new language (i.e. RunningWolf). Yet others were simply given "appropriate sounding" invented names (as Markishtum for members of the
Makah tribe).
Another category of acquired names is
foundlings
Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring in an illegal way, with the intent of never resuming or reasserting guardianship. The phrase is typically used to describe the physical abandonment of a ...
names. Historically, children born to unwed parents or extremely poor parents would be abandoned in a public place or anonymously placed in a
foundling wheel. Such abandoned children might be claimed and named by religious figures, the community leaders, or adoptive parents. Some such children were given surnames that reflected their condition, like (Italian)
Esposito,
Innocenti,
Della Casagrande,
Trovato Trovato is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Gerardina Trovato (born 1967), Italian singer-songwriter
*Mattia Trovato (born 1998), Italian football player
See also
* Ben Trovato (disambiguation) The name Ben Trovato derives fro ...
, Abbandonata, or (Dutch) Vondeling, Verlaeten, Bijstand. Other children were named for the street/place they were found (Union, Liquorpond (street), di Palermo, Baan, Bijdam, van den Eyngel (shop name),
van der Stoep, von Trapp), the date they were found (
Monday, Septembre, Spring, di Gennaio), or festival/feast day they found or christened (Easter, SanJosé). Some foundlings were given the name of whoever found them.
Gender-specific versions of surname
In some cultures and languages, especially the Baltic languages (Latvian and Lithuanian), and most of the Slavic languages (such as Bulgarian, Russian, Slovak, Czech, etc.) and some other nations – Greece and Iceland – surnames change form depending on the gender of the bearer.
Some Slavic cultures originally distinguished the surnames of married and unmarried women by different suffixes, but this distinction is no longer widely observed. In Slavic languages, substantivized adjective surnames have commonly symmetrical adjective variants for males and females (Podwiński/Podwińska in Polish, Nový/Nová in Czech or Slovak, etc.). In the case of nominative and quasi-nominative surnames, the female variant is derived from the male variant by a possessive suffix (Novák/Nováková, Hromada/Hromadová). In Czech and Slovak, the pure possessive would be Novákova, Hromadova, but the surname evolved to a more adjectivized form Nováková, Hromadová, to suppress the historical possessivity. Some rare types of surnames are universal and gender-neutral: examples in Czech are Janů, Martinů, Fojtů, Kovářů. These are the archaic form of the possessive, related to the plural name of the family. Such rare surnames are also often used for transgender persons during transition because most common surnames are gender-specific.
Some Czech dialects (Southwest-Bohemian) use the form "Novákojc" as informal for both genders. In the culture of the
Sorbs (a.k.a. Wends or Lusatians),
Sorbian used different female forms for unmarried daughters (Jordanojc, Nowcyc, Kubašec, Markulic), and for wives (Nowakowa, Budarka, Nowcyna, Markulina). In Polish, typical surnames for unmarried women ended -ówna, -anka, or -ianka, while the surnames of married women used the possessive suffixes -ina or -owa. The informal dialectal female form in Polish and Czech dialects was also -ka (Pawlaczka, Kubeška). With the exception of the -ski/-ska suffix, most feminine forms of surnames are seldom observed in Polish.
Generally, inflected languages use names and surnames as living words, not as static identifiers. Thus, the pair or the family can be named by a plural form which can differ from the singular male and female form. For instance, when the male form is Novák and the female form Nováková, the family name is Novákovi in Czech and Novákovci in Slovak. When the male form is Hrubý and the female form is Hrubá, the plural family name is Hrubí (or "rodina Hrubých").
In Greece, if a man called Papadopoulos has a daughter, she will likely be named Papadopoulou (if the couple has decided their offspring will take his surname), the genitive form, as if the daughter is "of" a man named Papadopoulos.
In Lithuania, if the husband is named Vilkas, his wife will be named Vilkienė and his unmarried daughter will be named Vilkaitė. Male surnames have suffixes -as, -is, -ius, or -us, unmarried girl surnames aitė, -ytė, -iūtė or -utė, wife surnames -ienė. These suffixes are also used for foreign names, exclusively for grammar; the surname of
the present Archbishop of Canterbury, for example, becomes ''Velbis'' in Lithuanian, while his wife is ''Velbienė'', and his unmarried daughter, ''Velbaitė''.
Latvian, like Lithuanian, use strictly feminized surnames for women, even in the case of foreign names. The function of the suffix is purely grammar. Male surnames ending -e or -a need not be modified for women. An exception is 1) the female surnames which correspond to nouns in the sixth declension with the ending "-s" – "Iron", ("iron"), "rock", 2) as well as surnames of both genders, which are written in the same nominative case because corresponds to nouns in the third declension ending in "-us" "Grigus", "Markus"; 3) surnames based on an adjective have indefinite suffixes typical of adjectives "-s, -a" ("Stalts", "Stalta") or the specified endings "-ais, -ā" ("Čaklais", "Čaklā") ("diligent").
In Iceland, surnames have a gender-specific suffix (-dóttir = daughter, -son = son).
Finnish used gender-specific suffixes up to 1929 when the Marriage Act forced women to use the husband's form of the surname. In 1985, this clause was removed from the act.
Other
The meanings of some names are unknown or unclear. The most common European name in this category may be the English (Irish derivative) name
Ryan
Ryan may refer to:
People and fictional characters
*Ryan (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name)
*Ryan (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name)
Places Australia
* Division of Ryan, an elector ...
, which means 'little king' in Irish.
Also, Celtic origin of the name Arthur, meaning '
bear
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...
'. Other surnames may have arisen from more than one source: the name
De Luca
DeLuca, also spelled Deluca or De Luca, is an Italian-language surname.
People with the surname include: People
* Adrian Deluca (born 1982), former Australian rules footballer
* Alby De Luca (1908–1978), Australian rules footballer
* Anthony ...
, for instance, likely arose either in or near Lucania or in the family of someone named Lucas or Lucius;
in some instances, however, the name may have arisen from Lucca, with the spelling and pronunciation changing over time and with emigration.
The same name may appear in different cultures by coincidence or romanization; the surname
Lee
Lee may refer to:
Name
Given name
* Lee (given name), a given name in English
Surname
* Chinese surnames romanized as Li or Lee:
** Li (surname 李) or Lee (Hanzi ), a common Chinese surname
** Li (surname 利) or Lee (Hanzi ), a Chinese ...
is used in English culture, but is also a romanization of the Chinese surname ''
Li''.
Surname origins have been the subject of much
folk etymology
Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...
.
In
French Canada until the 19th century, several families adopted surnames that followed the family name in order to distinguish the various branches of a large family. Such a surname was preceded by the word ''dit'' ("so-called," lit. "said") and was known as a ''nom-dit'' ("said-name"). (Compare with some
Roman naming conventions.) While this tradition is no longer in use, in many cases the ''nom-dit'' has come to replace the original family name. Thus the Bourbeau family has split into Bourbeau dit Verville, Bourbeau dit Lacourse, and Bourbeau dit Beauchesne. In many cases, Verville, Lacourse, or Beauchesne has become the new family name. Likewise, the Rivard family has split into the Rivard dit Lavigne, Rivard dit Loranger and Rivard dit Lanoie. The Hus family split into Hus dit Cournoyer, Hus dit Lemoine, Hus dit Latraverse, Hus dit Millet, Hus dit Paul, and Hus dit Beauchemin. The origin of the ''nom-dit'' can vary. Often it denoted a geographical trait of the area where that branch of the family lived: Verville lived towards the city, Beauchesne lived near an oak tree, Larivière near a river, etc. Some of the oldest ''noms-dits'' are derived from the war name of a settler who served in the army or militia: Tranchemontagne ("mountain slasher"), Jolicœur ("braveheart"). Others denote a personal trait: Lacourse might have been a fast runner, Legrand was probably tall, etc. Similar in German it is with ''genannt'' – "Vietinghoff genannt Scheel".
Order of names
In many cultures (particularly in
European and European-influenced cultures in the Americas, Oceania, etc., as well as West Asia/North Africa, South Asia, and most Sub-Saharan African cultures), the surname or family name ("last name") is placed after the personal,
forename (in Europe) or given name ("first name"). In other cultures the surname is placed first, followed by the given name or names. The latter is often called the
Eastern naming order because Europeans are most familiar with the examples from the
East Asian cultural sphere, specifically,
Greater China,
Korea (the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea),
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, and
Vietnam. This is also the case in
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...
. The
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
people of south India also place surname before personal name. There are some parts of Europe, in particular
Hungary, Bavaria in Germany, and the
Samis in Europe, that in some instances also follow the Eastern order.
Since family names are normally written last in European societies, the terms last name or surname are commonly used for the family name, while in Japan (with vertical writing) the family name may be referred to as "upper name" ().
When people from areas using Eastern naming order write their personal name in the
Latin alphabet, it is common to reverse the order of the given and family names for the convenience of Westerners, so that they know which name is the family name for official/formal purposes. Reversing the order of names for the same reason is also
customary for the
Baltic Finnic peoples and the
Hungarians, but other
Uralic peoples
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
traditionally did not have surnames, perhaps because of the
clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship
and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, mea ...
structure of their societies. The
Samis, depending on the circumstances of their names, either saw no change or did see a transformation of their name. For example: Sire in some cases became Siri, and Hætta Jáhkoš Ásslat became
Aslak Jacobsen Hætta – as was the
norm. Recently, integration into the EU and increased communications with foreigners prompted many Samis to reverse the order of their full name to given name followed by surname, to avoid their given name being mistaken for and used as a surname.
Indian surnames may often denote village, profession, and/or
caste
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...
and are invariably mentioned along with the personal/first names. However, hereditary last names are not universal. In
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
-speaking families in south India, surname is placed before personal / first name and in most cases it is only shown as an initial (for example 'S.' for Suryapeth).
In English and other languages like Spanish—although the usual order of names is "first middle last"—for the purpose of cataloging in libraries and in citing the names of authors in scholarly papers, the order is changed to "last, first middle," with the last and first names separated by a comma, and items are alphabetized by the last name. In France, Italy, Spain,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...
and Latin America, administrative usage is to put the surname before the first on official documents.
Compound surnames
While in many countries surnames are usually one word, in others a surname may contain two words or more, as described below.
English compound surnames
Compound surnames in English and several other European cultures feature two (or occasionally more) words, often joined by a
hyphen or hyphens. However, it is not unusual for compound surnames to be composed of separate words not linked by a hyphen, for example
Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader of the
British Conservative Party
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, ...
, whose surname is "Duncan Smith".
Surname affixes
Many surnames include prefixes that may or may not be separated by a space or punctuation from the main part of the surname. These are usually not considered true compound names, rather single surnames are made up of more than one word. These prefixes often give hints about the type or origin of the surname (patronymic, toponymic, notable lineage) and include words that mean from
place or lineage and son of/daughter of/child of.
The common Celtic prefixes "Ó" or "Ua" (descendant of) and "Mac" or "Mag" (son of) can be spelled with the prefix as a separate word, yielding "Ó Briain" or "Mac Millan" as well as the anglicized "O'Brien" and "MacMillan" or "Macmillan". Other Irish prefixes include Ní, Nic (daughter of the son of), Mhic, and Uí (wife of the son of).
A surname with the prefix "Fitz" can be spelled with the prefix as a separate word, as in "Fitz William", as well as "FitzWilliam" or "Fitzwilliam" (like, for example,
Robert FitzRoy). Note that "
Fitz" comes from French (fils) thus making these surnames a form of patronymic.
See other articles:
Irish surname additives,
Spanish nominal conjunctions,
Von,
Van
A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across th ...
,
List of family name affixes,
Patronymic surname, and
Toponymic surname
Chinese compound surnames
Some
Chinese surname
Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, and among overseas Chinese communities around the world such as Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese names begin with surnames, unlike the ...
s use more than one
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
.
Spanish-speaking world
In Spain and in most
Spanish-speaking countries, the custom is for people to have two surnames, with the first surname coming from the father and the second from the mother; the opposite order is now legally allowed in Spain but still unusual. In informal situations typically only the first one is used, although both are needed for legal purposes. A child's first surname will usually be their father's first surname, while the child's second surname will usually be their mother's first surname. For example, if José García Torres and María Acosta Gómez had a child named Pablo, then his full name would be Pablo García Acosta. One family member's relationship to another can often be identified by the various combinations and permutations of surnames.
In some instances, when an individual's first surname is very common, such as for example in
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (; born 4 August 1960) is a Spanish politician and member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). He was the Prime Minister of Spain being elected for two terms, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections ...
, the second surname tends to gain preeminence over the first one in informal use. Rodriguez Zapatero, therefore is more often called just ''Zapatero'' and almost never ''Rodriguez'' only; in other cases, such as in writer
Mario Vargas Llosa, a person becomes usually called by both surnames. This changes from person to person and stems merely from habit.
In Spain, feminist activism pushed for a law approved in 1999 that allows an adult to change the order of his/her family names, and parents can also change the order of their children's family names if they (and the child, if over 12) agree, although this order must be the same for all their children.
In Spain, especially
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the no ...
, the paternal and maternal surnames are often combined using the conjunction ''y'' ("and" in Spanish) or ''i'' ("and" in
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
), see for example the economist
Xavier Sala-i-Martin or painter
Salvador Dalí i Domènech.
In Spain, a woman does not generally change her legal surname when she marries. In some Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, a woman may, on her marriage, drop her mother's surname and add her husband's surname to her father's surname using the preposition ''de'' ("of"), ''del'' ("of the", when the following word is masculine) or ''de la'' ("of the", when the following word is feminine). For example, if "Clara Reyes Alba" were to marry "Alberto Gómez Rodríguez", the wife could use "Clara Reyes ''de'' Gómez" as her name (or "Clara Reyes Gómez", or, rarely, "Clara Gómez Reyes". She can be addressed as ''
Sra SRA may refer to:
* SRA0 to SRA4, standard paper sizes defined by ISO 217
* Satanic ritual abuse
* SRa or SRA, a type of semiregular variable star
* Senior Airman (SrA), a US Air Force rank
* Septic Reserve Area, for a septic drain field
* The Nat ...
. de Gómez'' corresponding to "Mrs Gómez"). Feminist activists have criticized this custom as they consider it sexist. In some countries, this form may be mainly social and not an official name change, i.e. her name would still legally be her birth name. This custom, begun in medieval times, is decaying and only has legal validity in
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...
,
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...
,
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
,
Nicaragua,
Honduras
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...
,
Peru,
Panama, and to a certain extent in Mexico (where it is optional but becoming obsolete), but is frowned upon by people in Spain, Cuba, and elsewhere. In Peru and the Dominican Republic, women normally conserve all family names after getting married. For example, if ''Rosa María Pérez Martínez'' marries ''Juan Martín De la Cruz Gómez'', she will be called ''Rosa María Pérez Martínez de De la Cruz'', and if the husband dies, she will be called ''Rosa María Pérez Martínez Vda. de De la Cruz'' (Vda. being the abbreviation for ''viuda'', "widow" in Spanish). The law in Peru changed some years ago, and all married women can keep their maiden last name if they wish with no alteration.
Historically, sometimes a father transmitted his combined family names, thus creating a new one e.g., the paternal surname of the son of ''Javier'' (given name) ''Reyes'' (paternal family name) ''de la Barrera'' (maternal surname) may have become the new paternal surname ''Reyes de la Barrera''. For example, Uruguayan politician
Guido Manini Rios has inherited a compound surname constructed from the patrilineal and matrilineal surnames of a recent ancestor. ''De'' is also the
nobiliary particle
A nobiliary particle is used in a surname or family name in many Western cultures to signal the nobility of a family. The particle used varies depending on the country, language and period of time. In some languages, it is the same as a regular p ...
used with Spanish surnames. This can not be chosen by the person, as it is part of the surname, for example, "Puente" and "Del Puente" are not the same surname.
Sometimes, for single mothers or when the father would or could not recognize the child, the mother's surname has been used twice: for example, "Ana Reyes Reyes". In Spain, however, children with just one parent receive both surnames of that parent, although the order may also be changed. In 1973 in Chile, the law was changed to avoid stigmatizing illegitimate children with the maternal surname repeated.
Some Hispanic people, after leaving their country, drop their maternal surname, even if not formally, so as to better fit into the non-Hispanic society they live or work in. Similarly, foreigners with just one surname may be asked to provide a second surname on official documents in Spanish-speaking countries. When none (such as the mother's maiden name) is provided, the last name may simply be repeated.
A new trend in the United States for Hispanics is to hyphenate their father's and mother's last names. This is done because American-born English-speakers are not aware of the Hispanic custom of using two last names and thus mistake the first last name of the individual for a middle name. In doing so they would, for example, mistakenly refer to Esteban Álvarez Cobos as Esteban A. Cobos. Such confusion can be particularly troublesome in official matters. To avoid such mistakes, Esteban Álvarez Cobos, would become Esteban Álvarez-Cobos, to clarify that both are last names.
In some churches, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where the family structure is emphasized, as well as a legal marriage, the wife is referred to as "''hermana''"
ister Ister, The Ister, or Der Ister may refer to:
*The Danube river, known as the Ister in Ancient Greek (Ἴστρος) and Thracian
*The Dniester river, known as the Ister in Thracian
*"Der Ister", a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin
**''Hölderlin's Hymn " ...
plus the surname of her husband. And most records of the church follow that structure as well.
Informal traditional names
In many places, such as villages in Catalonia,
Galicia
Galicia may refer to:
Geographic regions
* Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain
** Gallaecia, a Roman province
** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia
** The medieval King ...
, and
Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous community in northwest Spain.
It is coextensi ...
and in Cuba, people are often informally known by the name of their dwelling or collective family nickname rather than by their surnames. For example, Remei Pujol i Serra who lives at Ca l'Elvira would be referred to as "Remei de Ca l'Elvira"; and Adela Barreira López who is part of the "Provisores" family would be known as "Adela dos Provisores".
Also in many places, such as
Cantabria
Cantabria (, also , , Cantabrian: ) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a ''comunidad histórica'', a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the ea ...
, the family's nickname is used instead of the surname: if one family is known as "Ñecos" because of an ancestor who was known as "Ñecu", they would be "José el de Ñecu" or "Ana la de Ñecu" (collective: the Ñeco's). Some common nicknames are "Rubiu" (blond or red hair), "Roju" (reddish, referring to their red hair), "Chiqui" (small), "Jinchu" (big), and a bunch of names about certain characteristics, family relationship or geographical origin (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ).
Compound surnames
Beyond the seemingly "compound" surname system in the Spanish-speaking world, there are also true compound surnames. These true compound surnames are passed on and inherited as compounds. For instance, former Chairman of the
Supreme Military Junta of
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...
, General
Luis Telmo Paz y Miño
Luis Telmo Paz y Miño Estrella (15 April 1884–1962), more commonly known as Telmo Paz y Miño, was President of the Supreme Military Junta of Ecuador in July 1925.
Born in the then-rural parroquia of Chillogallo, in Quito, Ecuador, Ge ...
Estrella, has
Luis as his first given name, Telmo as his middle name, the true compound surname Paz y Miño as his first (i.e. paternal) surname, and Estrella as his second (i.e. maternal) surname. Luis Telmo Paz y Miño Estrella is also known more casually as Luis Paz y Miño, Telmo Paz y Miño, or Luis Telmo Paz y Miño. He would never be regarded as Luis Estrella, Telmo Estrella, or Luis Telmo Estrella, nor as Luis Paz, Telmo Paz, or Luis Telmo Paz. This is because "Paz" alone is not his surname (although other people use the "Paz" surname on its own).
In this case,
Paz y Miño is in fact the paternal surname, being a true compound surname. His children, therefore, would inherit the compound surname "Paz y Miño" as their paternal surname, while Estrella would be lost, since the mother's paternal surname becomes the children's second surname (as their own maternal surname). "Paz" alone would not be passed on, nor would "Miño" alone.
To avoid ambiguity, one might often informally see these true compound surnames hyphenated, for instance, as Paz-y-Miño. This is true especially in the
English-speaking world, but also sometimes even in the Hispanic world, since many Hispanics are unfamiliar with this and other compound surnames, "Paz y Miño" might be inadvertently mistaken as "Paz" for the paternal surname and "Miño" for the maternal surname. Although Miño did start off as the maternal surname in this compound surname, it was many generations ago, around five centuries, that it became compounded, and henceforth inherited and passed on as a compound.
Other surnames which started off as compounds of two or more surnames, but which merged into one single word, also exist. An example would be the surname
Pazmiño, whose members are related to the Paz y Miño, as both descend from the "Paz Miño" family of five centuries ago.
Álava, Spain is known for its incidence of true compound surnames, characterized for having the first portion of the surname as a patronymic, normally a Spanish patronymic or more unusually a
Basque patronymic, followed by the
preposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
"de", with the second part of the surname being a placename from Álava.
Portuguese-speaking countries
In the case of Portuguese naming customs, the main surname (the one used in alpha sorting, indexing, abbreviations, and greetings), appears last.
Each person usually has two family names: though the law specifies no order, the first one is usually the maternal family name, whereas the last one is commonly the paternal family name. In Portugal, a person's full name has a minimum legal length of two names (one given name and one family name from either parent) and a maximum of six names (two first names and four surnames – he or she may have up to four surnames in any order desired picked up from the total of his/her parents and grandparents' surnames). The use of any surname outside this lot, or of more than six names, is legally possible, but it requires dealing with bureaucracy. Parents or the person him/herself must explain the claims they have to bear that surname (a family nickname, a rare surname lost in past generations, or any other reason one may find suitable). In Brazil, there is no limit of surnames used.
In general, the traditions followed in countries like Brazil,
Portugal and
Angola
, national_anthem = "Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordina ...
are somewhat different from the ones in Spain. In the Spanish tradition, usually, the father's surname comes first, followed by the mother's surname, whereas in Portuguese-speaking countries the father's name is the last, mother's coming first. A woman may adopt her husband's , but nevertheless, she usually keeps her birth name or at least the last one. Since 1977 in Portugal and 2012 in Brazil, a husband can also adopt his wife's surname. When this happens, usually both spouses change their name after marriage.
The custom of a woman changing her name upon marriage is recent. It spread in the late 19th century in the upper classes, under French influence, and in the 20th century, particularly during the 1930s and 1940, it became socially almost obligatory. Nowadays, fewer women adopt, even officially, their husbands' names, and among those who do so officially, it is quite common not to use it either in their professional or informal life.
The children usually bear only the last surnames of the parents (i.e., the paternal surname of each of their parents). For example, ''Carlos da Silva Gonçalves'' and ''Ana Luísa de Albuquerque Pereira (Gonçalves)'' (in case she adopted her husband's name after marriage) would have a child named ''Lucas Pereira Gonçalves''. However, the child may have any other combination of the parents' surnames, according to
euphony, social significance, or other reasons. For example, is not uncommon for the firstborn male to be given the father's full name followed by "Júnior" or "Filho" (son), and the next generation's firstborn male to be given the grandfather's name followed by "Neto" (grandson). Hence ''Carlos da Silva Gonçalves'' might choose to name his first born son ''Carlos da Silva Gonçalves Júnior'', who in turn might name his first born son ''Carlos da Silva Gonçalves Neto'', in which case none of the mother's family names are passed on.
In ancient times a patronymic was commonly used – surnames like ''Gonçalves'' ("son of ''Gonçalo''"), ''Fernandes'' ("son of ''Fernando''"), ''Nunes'' ("son of ''Nuno''"), ''Soares'' ("son of ''Soeiro''"), ''Sanches'' ("son of ''Sancho''"), ''Henriques'' ("son of ''Henrique''"), ''Rodrigues'' ("son of ''Rodrigo''") which along with many others are still in regular use as very prevalent family names.
In Medieval times, Portuguese nobility started to use one of their estates' names or the name of the town or village they ruled as their surname, just after their patronymic.
Soeiro Mendes da Maia Soeiro is Portuguese given name and surname.
Notable people with the given name include:
* Soeiro Raimundes de Riba de Vizela (d. 1220), Portuguese nobleman
* Soeiro Pereira Gomes (1909–1949), Portuguese writer
Notable people with the surname i ...
bore a name "Soeiro", a patronymic "Mendes" ("son of Hermenegildo – shortened to Mendo") and the name of the town he ruled "
Maia". He was often referred to in 12th-century documents as "Soeiro Mendes, senhor da Maia", Soeiro Mendes, lord of Maia. Noblewomen also bore patronymics and surnames in the same manner and never bore their husband's surnames. First-born males bore their father's surname, other children bore either both or only one of them at their will.
Only during the Early Modern Age, lower-class males started to use at least one surname; married lower-class women usually took up their spouse's surname, since they rarely ever used one beforehand. After the
1755 Lisbon earthquake
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon earthquake, impacted Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula, and Northwest Africa on the morning of Saturday, 1 November, Feast of All Saints, at around 09:40 local time. In combination with ...
, Portuguese authorities realized the benefits of enforcing the use and registry of surnames. Henceforth, they became mandatory, although the rules for their use were very liberal.
Until the end of the 19th century, it was common for women, especially those from a very poor background, not to have a surname and so to be known only by their first names. A woman would then adopt her husband's full surname after marriage. With the advent of republicanism in Brazil and Portugal, along with the institution of civil registries, all children now have surnames.
During the mid-20th century, under French influence and among upper classes, women started to take up their husbands' . From the 1960s onwards, this usage spread to the common people, again under French influence, this time, however, due to the forceful legal adoption of their husbands' surname which was imposed onto Portuguese immigrant women in France.
From the 1974
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...
onwards the adoption of their husbands' receded again, and today both the adoption and non-adoption occur, with non-adoption being chosen in the majority of cases in recent years (60%). Also, it is legally possible for the husband to adopt his wife's , but this practice is rare.
Culture and prevalence
In the United States, 1,712 surnames cover 50% of the population, and about 1% of the population has the surname Smith,
[Genealogy](_blank)
, U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division (1995). which is also the most frequent English name and occupational name ("metal worker"), which is a suffix of
blacksmith or other
metalsmith
A metalsmith or simply smith is a craftsperson fashioning useful items (for example, tools, kitchenware, tableware, jewelry, armor and weapons) out of various metals. Smithing is one of the oldest list of metalworking occupations, metalworking o ...
s. Several American surnames are a result of corruption or phonetic misappropriations of European surnames, perhaps as a result of the registration process at the immigration entry points. Spellings and pronunciations of names remained fluid in the United States until the Social Security System enforced standardization.
Approximately 70% of Canadians have surnames that are of English, Irish, French, or Scottish derivation.
According to some estimates, 85% of China's population shares just 100 surnames. The names Wang (王), Zhang (张), and Li (李) are the most frequent.
[LaFraniere S]
Name Not on Our List? Change It, China Says
''New York Times''. 20 April 2009.
See also
*
Genealogy
*
Generation name
*
Given name
A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a ...
*
Legal name
*
List of family name affixes
*
Lists of most common surnames
Lists of most common surnames by region:
* List of most common surnames in Asia
* List of most common surnames in Europe
* List of most common surnames in North America
* List of most common surnames in Oceania (Australia, New Zealand)
* List o ...
*
Maiden and married names
When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" is also used ...
*
Matriname
A matrilineal surname or matrinameSykes, Bryan (2001). ''The Seven Daughters of Eve''. W.W. Norton. ; pp. 291–2. Professor Bryan Sykes uses "matriname", only, and states that women adding their own matriname to men's patriname (or "surname" as ...
*
Name blending
Name blending, meshing, or melding is the practice of combining two existing names to form a new name.Emma Barnett,, ''The Telegraph'' (November 9, 2012). An example is the combination of the surnames Dresser and McLoughlin to form the new surname ...
*
Name change
Name change is the legal act by a person of adopting a new name different from their current name.
The procedures and ease of a name change vary between jurisdictions. In general, common law jurisdictions have loose procedures for a name chang ...
* Names ending with
-ington Many placenames of English origin end with the element -ington.
Often following the name of a person, -ing means "folk of" or "clan of", and -ton suggests a village.
In return, many of these placenames later became surnames.
A number of fictional ...
*
Naming law
*
Nobiliary particle
A nobiliary particle is used in a surname or family name in many Western cultures to signal the nobility of a family. The particle used varies depending on the country, language and period of time. In some languages, it is the same as a regular p ...
*
One-name study
*
Patronymic surname
A patronymic surname is a surname originated from the given name of the father or a patrilineal ancestor. Different cultures have different ways of producing patronymic surnames.
For example, early patronymic Welsh surnames were the result of th ...
*
Personal name
A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known ...
*
Skin name
Aboriginal Australian kinship comprises the systems of Aboriginal customary law governing social interaction relating to kinship in traditional Aboriginal cultures. It is an integral part of the culture of every Aboriginal group across Aust ...
*
Surname extinction
In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family, tribe or community.
Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name, ...
*
Surname law
*
Surname map
Surname maps are maps which display and indicate the highest concentration of residents with a particular surname, or set of surnames. This information can be useful for studying the current or historic distribution of surnames, and occasionally t ...
*
Surnames by country
Surname conventions and laws vary around the world. This article gives an overview of surnames around the world.
English-speaking countries
Gaelic Surnames
Spanish-speaking countries
Argentina
In Argentina, normally only one family name ...
*
T–V distinction
*
Tussenvoegsel
A ''tussenvoegsel'' (, ) in a Dutch name is a family name affix positioned between a person's given name and the main part of their family name. There are similar concepts in many languages, such as Celtic family name prefixes, French particl ...
References
Further reading
* Blark. Gregory, et al. ''The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility'' (Princeton University Press; 2014) 384 pages; uses statistical data on family names over generations to estimate social mobility in diverse societies and historical periods.
* Bowman, William Dodgson. ''The Story of Surnames'' (London, George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1932)
* Cottle, Basil. ''Penguin Dictionary of Surnames'' (1967)
* Hanks, Patrick and Hodges, Flavia. ''A Dictionary of Surnames'' (Oxford University Press, 1989)
* Hanks, Patrick, Richard Coates and Peter McClure, eds. ''The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland'' (Oxford University Press, 2016), which has a lengthy introduction with much comparative material.
* Reaney, P.H., and Wilson, R.M. ''A Dictionary of English Surnames'' (3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 1997)
External links
*
Comprehensive surname information and resource site'
*
French surname dictionary''
*
Family Facts Archive Ancestry.com, including UK & US census distribution, immigration, and surname origins (''Dictionary of American Family Names'',
Oxford University Press'')
*
Guild of One-Name Studies'
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Information on surname history and origins'
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free searchable online database of Italian surnames''.
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Most used names in India, world's 2nd most populated country'
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Short explanation of Polish surname endings and their origin'
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