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A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name [1] that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a family or clan) who have a common surname.
The most popular given names vary nationally, regionally, and culturally. Lists of widely used given names can consist of those most often bestowed upon infants born within the last year, thus reflecting the current naming trends , or else be composed of the personal names occurring most often within the total population .
In Western culture, nearly all individuals possess at least one given name (also known as a first name, forename, or Christian name), together with a surname (also known as a last name or family name). In the name "James Smith", for example, James is the first name and Smith is the surname.
Spanish names are the traditional way of identifying, and the official way of registering, a person in Spain. They are composed of a given name (simple or composite) [a] and two surnames (the first surname of each parent). Traditionally, the first surname is the father's first surname, and the second is the mother's first surname.
The Baby Name Wizard author Laura Wattenberg explains that the practice became popular in the early 20th century as poor immigrants chose names they associated with the sophistication of English aristocracy and literature, many of them surnames. Regardless of origins, many names that are now considered first names in the U.S. have origins as ...
First/given/forename, middle, and last/family/surname with John Fitzgerald Kennedy as example. This shows a structure typical for Anglophonic cultures (and some others). Other cultures use other structures for full names. A surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family.
Chinese names also form the basis for many common Cambodian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese surnames, and to an extent, Filipino surnames in both translation and transliteration into those languages. The conception of China as consisting of the "old hundred families" (Chinese: 老百姓; pinyin: Lǎo Bǎi Xìng; lit.
The usual noun and adjective in English is patronymic, but as a noun this exists in free variation alongside patronym. [a] The first part of the word patronym comes from Greek πατήρ patēr 'father' (GEN πατρός patros whence the combining form πατρο- patro-); [3] the second part comes from Greek ὄνυμα onyma, a variant form of ὄνομα onoma 'name'. [4]