Surname conventions and laws vary around the world. This article gives an overview of surnames around the world.
A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. It is the male equivalent of a matronymic.
When a person 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, whereas a married name is a family name or surname adopted upon marriage.
A surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person.
Chinese names are personal names used by individuals from Greater China and other parts of the Sinophone world. Sometimes the same set of Chinese characters could be chosen as a Chinese name, a Hong Kong name, a Japanese name, a Korean name, a Malaysian Chinese name, or a Vietnamese name, but they would be spelled differently due to their varying historical pronunciation of Chinese characters.
A personal name, full name or prosoponym is the set of names by which an individual person is known, and that can be recited as a word-group, with the understanding that, taken together, they all relate to that one individual. In many cultures, the term is synonymous with the birth name or legal name of the individual. In linguistic classification, personal names are studied within a specific onomastic discipline, called anthroponymy.
Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as a central figure of modern African literature. His first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart (1958), occupies a pivotal place in African literature and remains the most widely studied, translated, and read African novel. Along with Things Fall Apart, his No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964) complete the "African Trilogy". Later novels include A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). In the West, Achebe is often referred to as the "father of African literature", although he vigorously rejected the characterization.
In various cultures, a middlename is a portion of a personal name that is written between the person's first given name and their surname. A middle name is often abbreviated and is then called middle initial or just initial.
Things Fall Apart is the debut novel of Nigerian author Chinua Achebe first published in 1958. It depicts the events of pre-colonial life in Igboland and the subsequent appearance of European missionaries and colonial forces in the late 19th century. It is seen as an archetypal modern African novel in English, and one of the first novels to receive global critical acclaim. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and is widely studied in English-speaking countries around the world. The novel was first published in the United Kingdom in 1958 by William Heinemann Ltd and became the first work published in Heinemann's African Writers Series.
Ambilineality is a form of kinship affiliation of cognatic descent that relies on self-defined affiliation within a given social system, meaning individuals have the choice to be affiliated with their mother's or father's group. Common features of societies that practice ambilineality are a shared set of land, communal responsibilities, and collective ownership of some segments of wealth and debt in their societies. This system of descent is distinct from more common genealogical structures in that rather than determining affiliation and descent using the standard determinants of biological and genealogical relation, it instead relies heavily on voluntary affiliation with one's group, oftentimes being determined by factors including residence.
A double-barrelled name is a type of compound surname, typically featuring two words, often joined by a hyphen. Notable people with double-barrelled names include Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Sacha Baron Cohen and JuJu Smith-Schuster.
Polish names have two main elements: the given name, and the surname. The usage of personal names in Poland is generally governed by civil law, church law, personal taste and family custom.
Indian names are based on a variety of systems and naming conventions, which vary from region to region. In Indian culture, names hold profound significance and play a crucial role in an individual's life. The importance of names is deeply rooted in the country's diverse and ancient cultural heritage. Names are also influenced by religion and caste and may come from epics. In Hindu culture, names are often chosen based on astrological and numerological principles. It is believed that a person's name can influence their destiny, and selecting the right name is essential for a prosperous and harmonious life. Astrologers may be consulted to ensure a name aligns with the individual's birth chart. India's population speaks a wide variety of languages and nearly every major religion in the world has a following in India. This variety makes for subtle, often confusing, differences in names and naming styles. Due to historical Indian cultural influences, several names across South and Southeast Asia are influenced by or adapted from Indian names or words.
Dutch names consist of one or more given names and a surname. The given name is usually gender-specific.
The Bulgarian name system has considerable similarities with most other European name systems, and with those of other Slavic peoples such as the Russian name system, although it has certain unique features.
The naming convention used in Eritrea and Ethiopia does not have family names and typically consists of an individual personal name and a separate patronymic. This is similar to Arabic, Icelandic, and Somali naming conventions. Traditionally for Ethiopians and Eritreans the lineage is traced paternally; legislation has been passed in Eritrea that allows for this to be done on the maternal side as well.
Canadian naming conventions vary based on whether one is Indigenous, English Canadian, or French Canadian.
A Turkish name consists of an ad or an isim and a soyadı or soyisim (surname). Turkish names exist in a "full name" format. While there is only one soyadı (surname) in the full name there may be more than one ad. Married women may carry both their maiden and husband's surnames. The soyadı is written as the last element of the full name, after all given names.
The naming customs of Hispanic America are similar to the Spanish naming customs practiced in Spain, with some modifications to the surname rules. Many Hispanophones in the countries of Spanish-speaking America have two given names, plus like in Spain, a paternal surname and a maternal surname.
A matrilineal surname or matriname is a family name inherited from one's mother, and maternal grandmother, and so on whose line of descent is called a mother-line, mitochondrial line, or matriline. A matriname passed on to subsequent issue is unchanged, as compared to a matronymic, which is derived from the first name of each new mother.
