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A personal name, full name or prosoponym (from Ancient Greek prósōpon – person, and onoma –name) [ 1] is the set of names by which an individual person or animal is known, and that can be recited as a word-group, with the understanding that, taken together, they all relate to that one individual. [ 2] In many cultures, the term is ...
A surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. [ 1][ 2] 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.
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 term given name refers to a name usually bestowed at or close to ...
Using the last name as the page title for a person, when the first name is also known and used, is discouraged, even if that name would be unambiguous, and even if it consists of more than one word. Unambiguous last names are usually redirects: for example, Ludwig van Beethoven is the title of an article, while Van Beethoven and Beethoven ...
Legal name. A legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of registration of the birth and which then appears on a birth certificate (see birth name ), but may change subsequently.
Middle names constitute the mother's maiden surname; is inserted between the given name and the surname (father's surname) and almost always abbreviated signifying that it is a "middle name". For example; given the name Jose Patricio Santos. This is usually abbreviated to Jose P. Santos.
Regardless of origins, many names that are now considered first names in the U.S. have origins as surnames. Names like Riley, Parker, Cooper, Madison, Morgan, Cameron, and Harper originated as surnames. Names that originate as surnames typically start out their lifespan as androgynous names before developing a common usage as either a masculine ...
When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) 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 ("birth name" is also used as a gender-neutral or masculine substitute for maiden name), whereas a married name is a family name or surname adopted upon marriage.