A birth name is the name given to a person upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth register may by that fact alone become the person's legal name. [1]
The assumption in the Western world is often that the name from birth (or perhaps from baptism or brit milah ) will persist to adulthood in the normal course of affairs—either throughout life or until marriage. Some reasons for changes of a person's name include middle names, diminutive forms, changes relating to parental status (due to one's parents' divorce or adoption by different parents), and gender transition.
The French and English-adopted née is the feminine past participle of naître, which means "to be born". Né is the masculine form. [2]
The term née, having feminine grammatical gender, can be used to denote a woman's surname at birth that has been replaced or changed. In most English-speaking cultures, it is specifically applied to a woman's maiden name after her surname has changed due to marriage. [3] The term né can be used to denote a man's surname at birth that has subsequently been replaced or changed. [4] The diacritic mark (the acute accent) over the e is considered significant to its spelling, and ultimately its meaning, but is sometimes omitted. [4]
According to Oxford University's Dictionary of Modern English Usage , the terms are typically placed after the current surname (e.g., "Margaret Thatcher, née Roberts" or "Bill Clinton, né Blythe"). [5] [4] Since they are terms adopted into English (from French), they do not have to be italicized, but they often are. [5]
In Polish tradition, the term z domu (literally meaning "of the house", de domo in Latin) may be used, with rare exceptions, meaning the same as née. [lower-alpha 1]
Surname conventions and laws vary around the world. This article gives an overview of surnames around the world.
In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns inherently carry one value of the grammatical category called gender. The values present in a given language, of which there are usually two or three, are called the genders of that language.
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.
French grammar is the set of rules by which the French language creates statements, questions and commands. In many respects, it is quite similar to that of the other Romance languages.
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, although several given names and surnames are possible in the full name. In modern times the "hereditary" requirement is a traditional, although common, interpretation, since in most countries a person has a right for a name change.
A third-person pronoun is a pronoun that refers to an entity other than the speaker or listener. Some languages, such as Slavic, with gender-specific pronouns have them as part of a grammatical gender system, a system of agreement where most or all nouns have a value for this grammatical category. A few languages with gender-specific pronouns, such as English, Afrikaans, Defaka, Khmu, Malayalam, Tamil, and Yazgulyam, lack grammatical gender; in such languages, gender usually adheres to "natural gender", which is often based on biological sex. Other languages, including most Austronesian languages, lack gender distinctions in personal pronouns entirely, as well as any system of grammatical gender.
A gender-specific job title is a name of a job that also specifies or implies the gender of the person performing that job. For example, in English, the job titles stewardess and seamstress imply that the person is female, whilst the corresponding job titles steward and seamster imply that the person is male. A gender-neutral job title, on the other hand, is one that does not specify or imply gender, such as firefighter or lawyer. In some cases, it may be debatable whether a title is gender-specific; for example, chairman appears to denote a male, but the title is also applied sometimes to women.
A given name is the part of a personal name that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group who have a common surname. The term given name refers to a name usually bestowed at or close to the time of birth, usually by the parents of the newborn. A Christian name is the first name which is given at baptism, in Christian custom.
Personal names in German-speaking Europe consist of one or several given names and a surname. The Vorname is usually gender-specific. A name is usually cited in the "Western order" of "given name, surname". The most common exceptions are alphabetized list of surnames, e.g. "Bach, Johann Sebastian", as well as some official documents and spoken southern German dialects. In most of this, the German conventions parallel the naming conventions in most of Western and Central Europe, including English, Dutch, Italian, and French. There are some vestiges of a patronymic system as they survive in parts of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, but these do not form part of the official name.
Lady is a term for a woman who behaves in a polite way. Once used to describe only women of a high social class or status, the female counterpart of lord, now it may refer to any adult woman, as gentleman can be used for men.
Mrs. or Mrs is a commonly used English honorific for women, usually for those who are married and who do not instead use another title or rank, such as Doctor, Professor, President, Dame, etc. In most Commonwealth countries, a full stop (period) is usually not used with the title. In the United States and Canada a period is usually used.
An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an honorary academic title. It is also often conflated with systems of honorific speech in linguistics, which are grammatical or morphological ways of encoding the relative social status of speakers. Honorifics can be used as prefixes or suffixes depending on the appropriate occasion and presentation in accordance with style and customs.
Bachelorette (/ˌbætʃələˈrɛt/) is a term used in American English for a single, unmarried woman. The term is derived from the word bachelor, and is often used by journalists, editors of popular magazines, and some individuals. "Bachelorette" was famously the term used to refer to female contestants on the old The Dating Game TV show and, more recently, The Bachelorette.
In the English language, an honorific is a form of address conveying esteem, courtesy or respect. These can be titles prefixing a person's name, e.g.: Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Mx, Sir, Dame, Dr, Cllr, Lady, or Lord, or other titles or positions that can appear as a form of address without the person's name, as in Mr President, General, Captain, Father, Doctor, or Earl.
Boi is slang within butch and femme and gay male communities for several sexual or gender identities.
French names typically consist of one or multiple given names, and a surname. Usually one given name and the surname are used in a person's daily life, with the other given names used mainly in official documents. Middle names, in the English sense, do not exist. Initials are not used to represent second or further given names.
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.
A system of grammatical gender, whereby every noun was treated as either masculine, feminine, or neuter, existed in Old English, but fell out of use during the Middle English period; therefore, Modern English largely does not have grammatical gender. Modern English lacks grammatical gender in the sense of all noun classes requiring masculine, feminine, or neuter inflection or agreement; however, it does retain features relating to natural gender with particular nouns and pronouns to refer specifically to persons or animals of one or other sexes and neuter pronouns for sexless objects. Also, in some cases, feminine pronouns are used by some speakers when referring to ships, to churches, and to nation states and islands.
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.
Laws have existed since the French Revolution stating that 'no citizen can use a first name or surname other than that written on their birth certificate' – but many official organisations address both partners by the husband's surname.