I've always thought western names are based on the following format:

X Y

X = First Name
Y = Last Name (Family Name)

For the last name, I've always thought it follows the family name and stays the same. But I heard that some westerners actually used the father's first name as their last name. Was this true?

I also heard that some westerners actually 'modifies' the last name based on their father's first name. If they are the only son in the family, they would simply add a 'son' after their father's first name to form their last name. For instance, father's called David, so the son's last name would be named by adding a 'son' to it, called 'Davidson'.

Also, I heard that in America, the last name does not necessarily reflect one's ancestry. For instance, a white American who was supposed to be of German ancestry had his last name changed to that of English (I heard this was the case during the 19th century).

I've a number of questions:

1. Can someone explain to me the normal western naming convention? It appears to be rather confusing (compared to chinese naming convention) as the last name doesn't seem to follow that of family name.

2. I also see some western names in America in the format X Y Z , for e.g. Jason Scott-Lee . Is this a name formed by interracial marriage (western scottish/chinese) ? The last name "Scott-Lee" seems to be a newly formed last name.

3. The naming convention between Anglo-countries (US, UK, Australia) seemed to be different from that of other parts of Europe. Were first name chosen based on christian/catholic name? What are the consideration when choosing a first name in western culture ?

4. Were christian name's history based on that of bible?

As far as I know, a lot of people didn't have surnames at one time. I think around the time of Napoleon's reign, those who didn't have one were made to choose one. Your example of Davidson is partly related to Jewish naming conventions. Jewish names usually followed a certain formula: X son of David (some included the name of their home town). I believe when they had to choose their surname, they just used this formula. So X son of David became X Davidson. Not all people with "son" at the end of their name are Jewish, though. Others simply adopted their father's name.

My last name is McClanahan. It can be doubly translated as “Son of the devotee of St. Oncho” or “Son of he who owns mantles”. Mc or Mac means “son of”. I think Gaelic names beginning with “O” (O'leary for example) means “son of”.

Just like Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, some westerners name their child after a passed or living relative. I, for example, was named after my father. However, some people just think up some names on the spot. Others have names planned out for years. My nephew was named after the quarterback Peyton Manning.

A fansite for Jason Scott Lee says his mother his Chinese and his father is Chinese-Hawaiian. His wiki article just says his is the son of "Robert and Sylvia Lee". The Scott part of his surname might be a stage name if his father was just "Lee".

Hi,
I think this idea of people in western countries not having last names for a long time is true. It seems that at some point in different countries people were just made to get last names. A lot of last names come from the jobs people's ancestors did or from the place they lived. Maybe people had to get last names when the state became more organised and you had to conscript armies, organise taxes etc, or later when people got the right to vote maybe, these are just my guesses. Some countries seems to have a set tradition, like Iceland, I think it is just based on the father's name there. Other countries have a big mixture. Russian last names are a big mix. Some of the most common ones are from professions, like Kuznetsov, which is 'smith', some of the others, like Ivanov and Petrov would have come from father's names, and some were just obviously made up on the spot and probably describe some characteristic or other of an ancestor (sometimes very unfortunate characteristics got chosen) or just indicate the place the family came from.
In Siberia, among peoples like the Yakuts, Evenks, Chukchi and so on, you find all these very common ethnic Russian last names, but those were last names just given to them all arbitrarily.
In Russia there is a system of the patronymic, so you have your first name, your last name, and in between a name that indicates that you are the son or daughter of so and so. This is also the name used together with the first name to address people in polite fashion.
As in much of Europe, the first names traditionally come from religion, the saints of the Russian Orthodox religion, but during the Soviet period people invented many new names. People in the Caucasus often have Muslim names, but they follow the same rules of first name, patronymic, last name as everyone else in Russia.

The northern European countries that were colonized by the Norse Vikings followed their custom of naming the son after the father. Hence the name Lief Ericson. or Lief son of Eric. The Mac in front of Scottish names and the Mc or O' in Irish names is from the same custom.
up until about the 11th Century the names changed with each generation.

Lief's son would be named Thor Liefson.

The Normans ( who were Norsemen) invaded England (1066), and even down in Sicily where the first to begin to keep the same last name primarily for reasons of inheritance purpose.
Gradually by the 14th century everyone began to be recorded with a permanent last name so that they could be kept track of for taxes.

The serfs and emerging middle classes took their names from their trades of where they were from. Some times a particular feature of their body or personality might become their surname.


When these name were first being used there was no standard spelling and you can have many names that were spelled quite differently.
The name Sharpe can also be spelled with out the e, same with Cooke or Browne.
Sims a derivative of Simon or Simonson, might be spelled Simson, Simms, Symms or Syms.
Mis copying of an old record also had great affect on the many different versions of spellings



Many names were changed when the immigrants were registered at Ellis Isle or at other points of entry. If the immigrant could not spell his last name or if they could not speak English ( which most could not) the person registering the person would try to make out what they were calling themselves. There was no guide on how to spell these many foreign sounds and the names were often butchered beyond recognition of the original name. Sometimes the immigrants name was so difficult to try and spell that the person recording the name gave them a completely different name.




Western surnames are always last and for the most part unless recorded improperly or legally changed stay the same.

You can trace the Marshall family through the fathers line back to the origin of the surname which came from William the Marshall.


2

This custom of adding the wife's surname hyphenated to the husbands is when the wife's family name is wealthier or just as prominent as the husbands. Then in the late 1960's you began to see this happening more frequently as women began to have more say in their own lives, they resented losing their own identity and began to have their own careers. It was also a way to keep their families surnames alive if there had been no sons born to their parents.
As the oldest daughter and having no brothers, I could have easily kept my families surname and either added it to my husbands or never have accepted his last name when we got married. If I had become successful in my own right ( especially if I was in the same field as my husband ) I could have used my maiden name.

Now on a side explanation it is an old tradition to give the first born daughter the mothers maiden name as a middle name. This helps greatly in tracing family genealogy.
My middle name is my mothers maiden (surname). When I got married I chose to drop my middle name and now use my own maiden name as my middle name. I chose not to hyphenate it, but could have easily have done so at that time or could legally do it now if I went before a judge.




First names are not standard.
Naming a child after a parent or grand parent is always popular.(Jews never name a child after a living relative)
Biblical names are usually the most popular, but even those go through fads and each generation will pick new ones that were not popular in the years before.
When I was born in the 1950's the standard saint names were popular... Mark, John, Peter, Richard (Rich or Dick), Phillip( Phil) Mathew (Matt) William (Will or Bill) James (Jim) for boys . Bland girls, frequently biblical names were picked Mary, Ann, Ruth, Sara, Jane, Rebecka (Becky), Alice, Katherine( Kathy) were popular.
Although each year the top most popular names change a little this trend lasted from the mid 30's into the 60's when hippy names began to appear... Moonbeam, Flower, Sunshine, Hope, Summer, Faith, Charity, Love etc began to emerge. These names would be close to the Chinese custom of naming after a concept or desire for the person to display a particular trait.

Then by the late 70s and 80's a new batch of names became popular.. Jason Joshua, Josiah Jesse Jennifer ( J's seemed to be very popular) Tiffany, Kimberly, Nick, Nichol.
Ethnic names became more common (The Irish names became popular .. Sean Kelly but also other ethnic names as well...German...Uwe, or Gunther... Italian, Anthony or Marcus)
Place names Montana, Dakota.
Myth names like Jason or Orion, Athena
Then you have Mac, Ace, Buck,Hank which are typically seen as macho names.
Historical figures like Robert Bruce or Harold

Naming girls typically male names is also common, either because the parents wanted a son or want to honor a special person, or just want to be different.

You find some mens names that seem like woman's names but it is most often that originally they were common male names..Carroll, Marian, Leslie, Kelly, Lynn,( from Franklyn )

Parents also try to make their children's names personalized by spelling a common name differently..Kelly could be Kelli or even Keleigh or Kelee.
Katherine could be Catherine Cathy, Kathy Kathi, Kathryn,Kate, Katie, Kat, and so on.
Adding an A to the male name is common.. Mike to Mika, John to Johna , , Sean to Seana or Colin to Colleen
or adding an ette such as Lynne to Lynette

Currently names that were very unpopular in the last 40 years have emerged as grandchildren are naming their children after their long gone Victorian grandparents.. Myrtle, Gladys, Oliver, Clive, Asa, Winston Franklyn, Ernest.
Flower names are also popular again Rose, Ivy, Lily (Lillian)
Frequently a surname will be used as a first name
Flynt, Tuner,
And we can not for get the unfortunate and often sadly cruel puns that are made like James Knight..( gym night) Penny Nickles, Neil Nehls


Biblical names are always popular and yes that is why the term christian name is used for the first name.

Many times a secondary name is given to a child when they are confirmed into their religion. Very similar as when a woman becomes a nun she picks a new name... which will always be that of a saint.

Adding to what kaiselin said...



The general rule is
1- you have one or several given names which are put at the front, those are chosen by your parents, and may include a patronym (notably in slav cultures)
2- then you have a family name at the end, which is your father's name (and can be made of several words : eg "dupont de nemours" is one name...)

People tend to have one to three given names. The first one is the one you use (françois for me), but you are often given one or two more names, to help avoiding confusion with other people who might share your name (a common situation in the east and west). The rules for second names vary a lot. Americans tend to use maiden/mother name, the french use a second given name, often the first name of a grand parent, or one which was in the family before, mine is andré, since it was the name of my grandfather, but two of my children have their chinese name as second name... Russians use the patronym... Third given name, again, follows no rule.

In rare cases, family name may change. Children whose father name is unknown might assume their mother, or step parent name, and there are new laws nowadays, which allow parents to decide to name their children by either the father, mother or both surnames... In some regions, it is traditional, for married women and in formal occasions to use their married name hyphenated with their maiden name... Finally, people who immigrate to western countries may change their names upon gaining citizenship. In France, you have the option of "frenchifying" your family name, originally to avoid being discriminated against as a "former foreigner". I know chinese who took advantage of this to romanise their name in a way to make it pronounceable by their new fellowcountrymen.

Also, some families have the habit of using the same given name for several generations. In this case, the "rank" (junior, senior, III) may be added after the surname.

Yet, in most cases, the rule first name is given name, second is surname, which is father name, applies.

As a side observation, I did notice when I was in China that surname changes were not as uncommon as one would believe (esp in the case of divorces or adoptions)



I don't think it has anything to do with race. Several possibilities :

They may be composed names, ie surnames consisting of several words, or just made by adding the name of the mother, something people do at time, sometimes to prevent a famous name from becoming extinct, sometimes just so that the mother gets mentioned, sometimes after a divorce. Different countries have different views on those names : some recognise both words, others just the first one, but the first one is very commonly used.



Lots of factors. Usually the parents choose some name they like, and which will sound well with the family name. Some choose names already in the family, others the names of famous actors or singers. For what I know, the considerations are very similar to those which chinese families observe (sounding nice, nice meaning, in the family already, from a famous person, looking a bit upper class....)



No, it is the other way around. Most names are older than the biblic (or christian) stories, but christian history has a lot of saints, and virtually every given name has a corresponding patron... sometime several (as a François, I have 3 or 4 possibilities to choose from, my son, named Pierre, has even more...)

Francois

I don't think this was mentioned but some surnames came from the job one performed as well. The two most commen examples of this are Smith and Milller, Smith was short for blacksmith and Miller was some who worked or owned a mill. Many surnames came from the areas from which people were born. So, Jason from York would be cut down to Jason York.

Francois is correct most of the Biblical names were around long before the Bible. But that is where our ancestors found many of their inspirations on choosing a newborns name.

I've never understood the Spanish naming rules. I've been told that their real names are much longer. If I recall I also understand that Hungarian surnames are placed first.

One thing that has confused me is how the middle name goes last in Spanish names.

It was a common practice one time in America,non-English speaking immigrants ( especially the Italians ) either ' anglicized ' or ' translate ' their family names.I can provide 2 examples.


* creator of America's HBO hit television drama ' The Sopranos ',his Italian surname " DeCesare ' has meaning equivalent to ' Chase ' In English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chase

* producer of some best American prime time TV series of 1970's-1980's,Gary Marchall changed his last name from "Marsciarelli" to "Marshall"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Marshall


Oh,we shouldn't leave out the ' double-barrelled ' surnames

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-barrelled_name

I find it interesting that in Iceland, "dottir" is appended to a woman's father's name instead of "sen" like in most Scandinavian countries (though said Scandinavian countries are also picking up on such a trend).

For instance, Ella Jansdottir instead of Ella Janssen. (just picking out a random name)

Maybe "dottir" stands for "daughter", so the daughter of Eric would be Ericdottir and the son of Eric would be Ericssen. This is similar to Slavic people tradition of naming "ova" to daughter and "ov" to son, such as dayghter of a "Stoic" would be Stoicnova, while a son would be Stoicnov. Anyway, it is interesting to note that nowadays, in Europe, only Icelandic people, being from an island far awy from mainland Europe, is keeping the tradition of naming son and daughter this way, i.e. their last name keeps on changing from generation to generation depending on what the first name of the father is.

Also,some Americans honor their father's given name for their child's ' middle name '.

Edward seems to be a prevalent middle name on my mother's side of the family.

Yep, "dottir" means daughter and "sen", son.

Indeed, I'm am example of something like this. My name is Aaron Walter Philip. My father's name is Walter Philip, and my grandfather's name was Walter Ludwig (actually it would be Vladis Ludwig, but when he came to Canada he changed it to Walter. Though he told me he hated his middle name, and he never used it when he was registered as a citizen in Canada.)

Here in Italy things are quite simple, because you only have one family name and it's very rare to change it (even if sometimes there is a family name with an offensive meaning and people change one vowel to avoid that problem).

You have one or two personal names, and you can be named after your grandfather/grandmother or just because your parents like the sound of that particular name (this one actually is the most followed criterion). Somebody name their children after some favourite singer or actor, but is not very appreciated. In old times babies were named also after the saint worshipped in the day of the birth or was just called First (son), Second (son) and so on.

The family name is only one, you father family name. Latest legal news reports that if parents decide so they can give the mother family name to their babies.

Married women can choose if keep their own family name, drop it and pick up the husband family name or use both (personal first, husband second).
An old use was to add "in" (same meaning in english) to say "married with": Myname Myfamilyname IN Myhusbandname.

I think that's all that i remember...


Ps = curiosity about Iceland. It's compulsory to have that patronymic/matronymic family name, but there is some rare exception for the ancent immigrated families. Actually if you want the icelandic citizenship you must change your family name into that patronimic form.

It's interesting indeed. My current obsession with Spanish TV shows had me wiki-ing Spanish naming customs. Apparently there's no concept of a "middle name" a la the Anglos. The "middle name" is their father's surname and the last name, their mother's surname. I find this rather equalitarian and a pretty cool naming custom, after all both the man and the woman had a part to play in the conception and birth of a child, so why shouldn't a child's name reflect this? Not to mention Spanish women never change their surname after marriage.

A dude named Aitor Suarez Miranda would have a dad surnamed Suarez and a mom surnamed Miranda, but he would normally only use Aitor Suarez.

Actually, Russians do use patronymics names but only as a second name. And patronymic end with suffix -ich in case of males and -ovna in case of females. For example - Putin's full name is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, which means Vladimir, son of Vladimir, Putin. This naming convention largely disappeared from other Slavic languages. In Poland it became obsolete in 16th century. today remains only in some nouns. From example - Polish word "krolewicz" means "king's son". To finish the subject of Russian names: suffixes -ov and -ova in Russian surnames reflect the place of origin.

As to Polish naming convention, it is largely the same as in other European countries. We follow the standard model: name + surname. At marriage newlyweds are free to decide: both spouses can keep their own surnames, one spouse can adopt the surname of the other, or one spouse can add the other's surname to his or hers own. Newlyweds also decide at marriage whether children will have surname of mother or father. Customary, the wife adopts the surname of husband and children are given their father's surname.

Many given names in Poland are borrowed from Hebrew, Greek, Romance and Germanic languages, but fairly large number of indigenous Slavic given names survived. Some persons are given two names, but that's not necessary. I for example do not have a second name. Polish surnames very often end on suffixes like -ski, -cki (males) and -ska, -cka (females). These surnames are adjectives and usually indicate place of origin of ancestors of that person. Most of Polish nobility had surnames ending with one of these suffixes. However, most persons with such surnames are not of noble origin, and not all nobles had such surnames.

I'm not sure what you consider "Western" but many Eastern Orthodox countries follow the Greek naming convention.

Your "middle name" is a Patronymic...so for example.

A man named Oleg Romanov Purishkevich

He has a daughter:

Her name might be Anna Olegnova Purishkyevna

His son might be Pietor Olegyevich Purishkevich



Greeks do this but with out the ending changes.

They usually add some stuff...if your father was:

Nikolous Yanni Stephanopolous

the son will be

Demitri Nikolous Stephanopolous

the grandson will be

Nikolous Demitri Stephanopolous


Often all the sons of the generation will be named after the grandfather...(first name)...


Most common surnames in Europe come from biblical names and they are bastardizations of Hebrew.

Usually they were translated into Greek from Hebrew and then into Latin for Western Europe.




This was common for most biblical names to go through this process.

The Greek ones took hold in Orthadox nations and the Latin version in the West, which was also translated again into Germanic names.

To make it even more confusing, Hungarians put their surname (family name) FIRST and their given name (personal name) LAST, Asian-style. Keep in mind that Hungarians do not speak an Indo-European language like most Europeans; the Hungarians originally came from the steppes of Central Asia.

For instance, a Hungarian might be named: Szabo István.

An English translation would be: Stephen Tailor.

Szabo István's son might be named Szabo György (George Tailor). His daughter might be named Szabo Zsófia (Sophia Tailor). And so on and so forth.

Western cultures vary as to the use of middle names. In some cultures they are standard, and in fact some people have long strings of middle names. In other cultures they are almost never used. Middle names really started to be used in the medieval period, and it took awhile for it to catch on. Nowadays your average American or British person would have one middle name. Sometimes it's the name of a relative, an ancestor, or even their mother's maiden name.

Spanish people often give their children many, many middle names, usually names of saints. You can find people with ornate names like Maria de las Mercedes Isabel Teresa Cristina Alfonsa Jacinta (the real name of a Spanish princess). Greeks, on the other hand, almost never give their children middle names.

The final answer to "What are the Western naming conventions?" comes to more questions:
Where?
When?
What religion?
What social/economic standing?


The history of naming conventions is an entire field all to its own within history and language.