Naming Customs

[ThinkMinty]

Now, I'm American, so I'm largely used to the First/Given-Middle-Last/Surname setup, but I'm wondering about what other setups there are besides that, how they work, etc...

[Fri]

Interestingly there's a similar thread a way back.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?408127-Any-culture-without-Surname

Here's my entry on that thread.


I'm javanese (not japanese! just one letter difference :smallbiggrin:) and we don't have surnames. Javanese just name their kids whatever they want, often more than one words, but none of them are surnames. Like for example, if there's a javanese man named John Smith, both of those names are given by his parent as his name, and smith isn't his father's surname. A lot of time Javanese people give their kid one word name, or three or four words name too. Like for example, if a javanese man is named Mohammed John Smith McGrady, none of those are his surname! This often gives confusion and mistakes for foreign journalists, since indonesian president is javanese and a lot of indonesian officials are javanese. It's even more confusing, since a lot of muslim javanese give their kid "Muhammad" in front of their son's name, but it's not intended to be his first name! Just a sort of reverence to the prophet. So the afromentioned Mohammed John Smith McGrady isn't called Mohammed, he's called John.

It is indeed confusing and annoying for formal and international purpose. For example, that Mohammed John, when he's on international flight, a lot of times officials and announcement will call for "Mr. Mohammed." He's never called that in his own country, so he might miss a call intended for him.

So when a javanese need surname for official or international purpose, what could he do? Well, he could use arabic system, which just give his father's full name at the end. So if Mohammed John Smith McGrady's father is Takeshi Miyamoto, in his birth certificate his full name might be Mohammed John Smith McGrady bin Takeshi Miyamoto (bin means "son of"). As you can see, this also give some troubles, since his official name is so long that it doesn't fit in a lot of forms.

So sometimes, a javanese person just treat his second name as his surname, eventhough it's actually not. John Smith might just put "John" as his name and "Smith" as his surname in forms anyway.

And... this still give trouble sometimes. For example, for someone with more than three names. Or, for someone called "Mohammed John." He'll have to put "Mohammed" as his name and "John" as his surname, eventhough he's supposed to be called "John." It's annoying to be called with a name that's not supposed to be your name, isn't it?

For me personally, I have three word names. Let's say my name is Mohammed John Smith. When needed, for example for work, since I work in an international company, I'll just say my name is John Smith to simplify things, and use John as my name and Smith as my surname. Though, the name in my passport is still Mohammed John Smith. And the name in my credit card is Mohammed John.

Yeah. If I ever marry and have a kid, I'll make myself a damn surname, and give my kid a simple two word names, to simplify everything.

Edit: Someone above asked if there's a place where someone would just be called "Bill" or something. Well, Indonesia's first president is javanese and his name is Soekarno. That's it. No other name.

[Brother Oni]

Now, I'm American, so I'm largely used to the First/Given-Middle-Last/Surname setup, but I'm wondering about what other setups there are besides that, how they work, etc...

Scandinavian countries used to use [Father's Name]son and [Mother's Name]dotta, although I believe all of them except Iceland have moved away from that.

Hong Kong Chinese have a Chinese name then typically pick an English name to help English speakers interact with them (for example, Jackie Chan's birth name is Chan Kong-sang and he picked up Jackie from his time as a builder in Australia).

Chinese names also tend to have a generational name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_name), where all the children of a particular generation have the same component in their given names, for example a set of brothers may be called Hanzheng, Hanli and Hanyong.
The actual characters used in a Chinese name also tend to have a inspirational or evocative meaning (eg Strong or Blossom), although it may be buried inside. A famous media example is Yu Jen (玉娇龙) from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has the character 'Dragon' (龙) in her name.

Japanese names also tend to be the same, although there are certain common suffixes that are gender linked, for example: -hiko and -ko tend to be feminine, while -hito and -ro tend to be male. There's also a much greater variation in how they read names - the character '一' can be used for the names Hajime, Hitoshi, or as part of names starting or ending with 'Ichi' or names starting or ending with 'Kazu'. Meanwhile Hajime can be written with about 9 different characters (link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajime)).
These varying reasons are part of why it's so hard to translate to/from Japanese at times and one of the first things I tend to ask is 'what's the character?'.


Interestingly there's a similar thread a way back.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?408127-Any-culture-without-Surname

Here's my entry on that thread.

Huh, I remember that thread now, complete with my contributions. :smalltongue:

[Gnomvid]

Scandinavian countries used to use [Father's Name]son and [Mother's Name]dotta, although I believe all of them except Iceland have moved away from that.

Close but not quite correct up until the custom of Patronymic and Matronymic names were forbidden by law in Denmark in 1828, in Sweden in 1901 and in Norway in 1922.
How ever the matronymic was never very common so for example if John and Emma had a son named Erik his name would have been Erik Johnson (sen in Denmark and Norway and poika in Finland) but could have been the matronymic Erik Emmason, likewise if they had a daughter Astrid her name would have been Astrid Johnsdotter (datter in Denmark, tytär in Finland and dóttir in Iceland) or if the matronymic had been used Astrid Emmasdotter.

Icalend and some parts of the Faeroe islands still use the patronymic and matronymic naming system, it is in most places allowed again but is very seldom used so most Adamsson, Johnsson and so on are simply what became a family name after the inheriting of the fathers first name was forbidden.

So today Adam Johnson does not mean Adam is the son of John down the street or where ever as it did before the naming law came into effect same for daughters with the exception of Iceland and Faeroe islands, where this is in fact exactly what it means.

[GolemsVoice]

Russia still has patronyms, meaning every Russian will have a first name, a patronym, and a family name.

So Ivan, son of Sergej, with the family name Petrov, will be Ivan Sergejevitch Petrov. His sister Anna would be Anna Sergeevna Petrova. While most other Slavic countries don't have the patronym anymore, many of them still have the a at the end for women of the family. Foreign names are an exception there.

Russians also have a plethora of nicknames, like Sasha, short for Alexander (or Alexandra). Family and friends will usually use each others nicknames or first names, while more formal acquaintances, like in a big factory, will refer to each other by their first name and patronyms. This is also used to talk to superiors, or for children to talk to their teachers. So a pupil might call her teacher Marfa Ivanovna.

[Gwynfrid]

Now, I'm American, so I'm largely used to the First/Given-Middle-Last/Surname setup, but I'm wondering about what other setups there are besides that, how they work, etc...

Actually, that prompts a question: Where does the custom of using a middle name come from? As far as I can gather, it's not inherited from Europe. None of the European countries I know have it. In France where I come from, it's customary to register several (traditionally 3) first names at birth, but that's mostly for the purpose of government, to reduce the chances of confusion when several people have the same first and last names. Nobody uses their extra first names in daily life. In the US however, people will sign with their middle name or at least their middle initial.

[thorgrim29]

Same thing here as in France. Many people who do have them don't even know their middle names. It seems to have a link to the catholic church since typically people who were baptized as infants have middle names (usually Joseph/Marie and the name of the godfather/mother or grandparent's name and godparent). A lot of younger people who weren't baptized at birth don't have middle names. The whole thing is falling out of favour pretty rapidly.

[FinnLassie]

I'd like to point out that using the -poika/-tytär endings in names wasn't really used for surnames, ever, since a lot of people didn't really... have those up until the 1700s/1800s on a wide basis, and in the Karelia-region the last name varied based on where the family moved. For example, my father's side has had a ton of surnames. It was just customary to do that, because people were notably known based on where they lived.

It's also important to point out that because of the Finnish language, names wouldn't be like Mattitytär, but Matintytär (daughter of Matti), or Juhonpoika (son of Juho), Simontytär (daughter of Simo), or Tapionpoika (son of Tapio).

An example of historical use of these names - at least in the Karelian / Eastern Finland regions:
There are two girls named Helena in the village. It brings up confusion between the villagers, so people start to add their father's name to the end. Hence, one of them will be called as Helena Timontytär (daughter of Timo), and one of them Helena Heikintytär (daughter of Heikki). Same for guys, Yrjö - which is btw Finnish version of George - Antinpoika (son of Antti) and Yrjö Matinpoika (son of Matti).

I could go on about naming customs in the eastern parts of FInland for ages, but honestly... I don't really know the words to use in English.


edit: it's very rare to see these -poika and -tytär names nowadays, due to them not really being needed nowadays thanks to surnames. I've seen some people getting back to them though as old names are coming back to fashion as parents have started to give their ancestors' names to their kids. Which is lovely.

Interestingly, my gran, born in the 1920's had her name and my current first name. In the church books she also had Matintytär as her third given name, but officially she just had the two names. I dunno the logic behind that, but I think it must've been for local records.

[GolemsVoice]

Actually, that prompts a question: Where does the custom of using a middle name come from? As far as I can gather, it's not inherited from Europe. None of the European countries I know have it. In France where I come from, it's customary to register several (traditionally 3) first names at birth, but that's mostly for the purpose of government, to reduce the chances of confusion when several people have the same first and last names. Nobody uses their extra first names in daily life. In the US however, people will sign with their middle name or at least their middle initial.

I think it's popular in France, Spain, and countries with French and Spanish roots. I imagine it was a kind of patronym/matronym thing, used to fit in ancestors such as mother, father, aunts and uncles.

[SirKazum]

At least in Brazil (probably comes from Portugal though), it's common for people to have two surnames, one from each parent. In that case, only the last name (traditionally the father's surname) is the "official" surname if such a thing needs to be distinguished. It's also common for people to have more than one given name, in which case only one of them gets any use and the rest are usually ignored. The first given name tends to be the one that gets used, unless it's one of the really common names (João, José or Maria), in which case they'll be called by whatever comes after that - e.g. "João Henrique" is likely called "Henrique" by everyone and "Maria Júlia" is likely called "Júlia".

For example, a guy might be named Manoel Eduardo Soares Lima. Lima would come from his father, and Soares from his mother. If someone were to address him formally by surname, they might call him "Mr. Lima" (not "Mr. Soares Lima"). Those are two surnames, not a double surname, and by custom, only Lima would be passed on to his children, not Soares. Family and friends would call him just Manoel (although his mother probably called him "Manoel Eduardo" when she wanted to scold him). If he needs to inform both given and family name but the full, "official" name isn't necessary (say, in his Facebook account), he'll go by "Manoel Lima" and summarily ignore the rest. Let's say he marries a lady named Ana Gomes Carrera - she will traditionally rename herself Ana Carrera Lima upon marriage (although things are more varied nowadays - the woman often keeps her original name, and sometimes the guy assumes his wife's name), and their children will have "Carrera Lima" as surnames, e.g. "Laura Carrera Lima".

There are cases of double surnames though, like say, "Costa e Silva". In that case, the whole thing will get passed on to children, and it's considered as one's proper surname (e.g. "Mr. Costa e Silva"). Despite being more than one word, that still counts as only one surname.

[Ruslan]

Russia still has patronyms, meaning every Russian will have a first name, a patronym, and a family name.

So Ivan, son of Sergej, with the family name Petrov, will be Ivan Sergejevitch Petrov. His sister Anna would be Anna Sergeevna Petrova.
I once had a coworker named Yuri Adolfovich. His father was born in the 30's, when naming a child Adolf was still socially acceptable. Of course the father, growing up in the 40's, had to endure a lot of crap over his given name, but it didn't end there. Yuri himself was born around 1960, and had to go through Soviet highschool in the 70's with his teacher constantly addressing him as "Yuri <ominous pause> A-dol-fo-vich, please come to the board".

Stupid Hitler, ruining school for two generations.

[GolemsVoice]

I've heard tell that here in Germany it was common to name the fifth child of the family after the Fuhrer during that time of history, meaning there still are a few old people running around with that name here.

[Sobol]

While most other Slavic countries don't have the patronym anymore, many of them still have the a at the end for women of the family. Foreign names are an exception there.
There are also some Russian surnames which are the same for men and women.
For example, "Ubeyvolk", which is fairly common in southern Russia and means (approximately) "Kill-the-Wolf". No, not "Wolf-Killer", but "Kill-the-Wolf" - like a command.

There's a good TV Tropes article about Russian names:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RussianNamingConvention
My first name is Viktor, and I hate being called Vitya - prefer Vityok.

[Artemis97]

I know a lot of folks in my region, the southern US, choose a Christian name for themselves when they go through Confirmation, the ceremony where they formally confirm their faith. It acts sort of like a second middle name. So an Elizabeth Anne Franklin would choose Rebecca and become Elizabeth Anne Rebecca Franklin. At least, I'm pretty sure that's how it works, it's not a tradition in my family.

[lurkmeister]

Traditional Roman names (of the Gaius Julius Caesar variety) had three parts:

The praenomen (Gaius in this example) was the child's given name. Relatively few were ever in use, but addressing someone by their praenomen would have extremely informal. I'm talking lover/close friend informal, here.

The nomen (Julius) was the name of an extended Roman family. It was also the most common name a person would be addressed by (hence why Julius is a first name in Julius Caesar). The effect must have been something like that one teacher who insisted on calling everybody by their last names: these were the names with the highest variety in Roman times.

Finally, there was the cognomen (Caesar) was basically ... a nickname that could become semi-hereditary. They could appear and disappear almost at will, but were also often passed down in families (e.g. "Caesar"), were often grammatically unusual, and could be compounded on top of everything else.

So there's this NFL player called Calvin Johnson, right? He also has the popular nickname "Megatron". That would make his Roman name Calvin Johnson Megatron, except his children would probably all be called "Johnson" by everyone around them except for their immediate family instead.

[GolemsVoice]

Romans were REALLY big on family.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

There's a Scottish convention some people follow (usually within a family), that many generations will share the same first given name, but not necessarily be known by that name - they use their middle given name instead.

Example: I'm named for my Grandfather, Edward McX*. My name is Edward Alastair McX - but I'm never called Edward by people who know me, and I always introduce myself as Alastair.

I've met a good few people with a similar set up, and they're all Scots.

*No, we're not the Scottish branch of Professor X's clan - I'm Just not giving out my whole name in a public forum.

[Madbox]

There's a Scottish convention some people follow (usually within a family), that many generations will share the same first given name, but not necessarily be known by that name - they use their middle given name instead.

Example: I'm named for my Grandfather, Edward McX*. My name is Edward Alastair McX - but I'm never called Edward by people who know me, and I always introduce myself as Alastair.

I've met a good few people with a similar set up, and they're all Scots.

*No, we're not the Scottish branch of Professor X's clan - I'm Just not giving out my whole name in a public forum.

So that's a Scottish convention? I wonder if I have Scottish ancestors, since my family has that tradition. All boys are named James, most go by middle names, a few go by a nickname for James (My family calls me Jimmy, although everyone else calls me James). Oddly enough, we have a Welsh surname. Of course, I already know I'm a mutt. Polish, Finnish, two different Native American tribes, and something from the UK.

Also, have you ever been on one of those baby name websites? I know here in the US, it seems to be that the names of kids from wealthy families start out unique, and then poorer families name their kids after the children of celebrities, and then the upper class abandon it and the name is viewed as trashy. I wonder if this pattern holds elsewhere.

[Gnomvid]

So that's a Scottish convention? I wonder if I have Scottish ancestors, since my family has that tradition. All boys are named James, most go by middle names, a few go by a nickname for James (My family calls me Jimmy, although everyone else calls me James). Oddly enough, we have a Welsh surname. Of course, I already know I'm a mutt. Polish, Finnish, two different Native American tribes, and something from the UK.

Also, have you ever been on one of those baby name websites? I know here in the US, it seems to be that the names of kids from wealthy families start out unique, and then poorer families name their kids after the children of celebrities, and then the upper class abandon it and the name is viewed as trashy. I wonder if this pattern holds elsewhere.

Not necessarily a Scottish convention, I'm Swedish and my full name is Lars Michael but the first name has never been used, same for my middle Brother Johan Niklas when Johan is never used but unlike my youngest brother Erik Sixten where the middle name is not used.

[Madbox]

Not necessarily a Scottish convention, I'm Swedish and my full name is Lars Michael but the first name has never been used, same for my middle Brother Johan Niklas when Johan is never used but unlike my youngest brother Erik Sixten where the middle name is not used.

In all honesty, for the longest time I assumed it was just because my dad's family is a bunch of rednecks who live in backwoods Georgia (US State, not the country). Seriously, I have an aunt who is named James Francis because her parents thought she was going to be the only child they ever had, and they wanted to keep up the tradition. She goes by Jimmie. Of course, the nice thing about a family like mine is it taught me early on that backwoods hick ≠ stupid, since my dad is an engineer, and his brothers are an airplane mechanic and a self-employed auto mechanic :smallbiggrin:.

[Red Fel]

There are a number of Hebrew naming conventions. First off, there are patronyms and matronyms. For example, a boy's Hebrew name is X ben Y (e.g. Shlomo ben Moshe meaning Shlomo son of Moshe), a girl is A bat B (e.g. Maya bat Chana, Maya daughter of Chana). Sometimes the name is two names, so Mayim Rachel bat Esther, for instance. Further, it is tradition to name a child after a deceased relative, although it's not always an exact translation - for example, a boy named Zev could be named for a grandmother Zipporah, two names which resemble one another only in terms of the first letter.

This becomes even more complicated in American society, where it's common to have a Hebrew name that is distinct from the English one. So while some may have similar names (e.g. Jonathan and Yoni, David and David), others may be completely dissociated (e.g. Jordan and Chayana, Tyler and Yossi).

What's more, the name isn't given until several days after birth. So while an English name must necessarily be provided for legal documents at the time of delivery, a Hebrew name won't formally be given - or even announced - for days.

As for the concept of middle names, I always assumed those derived from an emulation of European nobles, who tended to have like a dozen of the things. ("His royal highness, Christopher Rupert Windermere Vladimir Carl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman...")