See also: sur-name

English

edit
 
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

edit

Etymology

edit

From Middle English surname, a partial calque of Old French surnum, surnoun (surname; nickname) (whence Middle English surnoun), from Late Latin supernōmen, suprānōmen (surname), from super- (over, above, beyond) and nōmen (name),[1] equivalent to sur- +‎ name.

Pronunciation

edit

Noun

edit

surname (plural surnames)

  1. The portion of a person's name that is generally hereditary or treated as an indicator of a person's family, which may be shared with other members of the family, or otherwise derived from their names in some fashion; distinguished from that person's given name(s).
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:surname
    James is my first name, and Smith is my surname.
    • 1605, William Camden, Remaines, I 32:
      In late yeeres Surnames have beene given for Christian names among vs, and no where else in Christendom.
    • 1876, E. A. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest, V xxv 563:
      The Norman Conquest...brought with it the novelty of family nomenclature, that is to say, the use of hereditary surnames.
  2. (obsolete) Synonym of epithet, an additional name, particularly those derived from a birthplace, quality, or achievement.
  3. (obsolete) Synonym of nickname, an additional name given to a person, place, or thing, a byname.
    • 1638, Abraham Cowley, Davideis, section IV:
      I have before declared that Baal was the Sun, and Baal Peor, a sirname, from a particular place of his worship.
  4. (Classical studies) The cognomen of Roman names.
  5. (Can we verify(+) this sense?) (Scotland, obsolete) A clan.

Usage notes

edit
  • The term surname may be used to translate terms from non-English names which carry additional shades of meaning; most notably in the case of Roman cognomens.
  • Both surname and last name are extremely common in all dialects of English, the former being somewhat more preferred in the UK and the latter in the US. However, because of the cultural and gendered associations involved with both terms, the use of family name is increasingly preferred in multicultural contexts.

Hypernyms

edit

Hyponyms

edit

Coordinate terms

edit

Derived terms

edit

Translations

edit
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Verb

edit

surname (third-person singular simple present surnames, present participle surnaming, simple past and past participle surnamed)

  1. (transitive) To give a surname to.
  2. (transitive) To call by a surname.

Translations

edit

Statistics

edit

The most common surnames in the United States, as of the 2010 census (with number of persons bearing said surname)[2]:

1. Smith; 2,442,977

2. Johnson; 1,932,812

3. Williams; 1,625,252

4. Brown; 1,437,026

5. Jones; 1,425,470

6. Garcia; 1,166,120

7. Miller; 1,161,437

8. Davis; 1,116,357

9. Rodriguez; 1,094,924

10. Martinez; 1,060,159

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary. "surnoun, n."
  2. ^ [1] "Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 Census"

Anagrams

edit

Middle English

edit

Alternative forms

edit

Etymology

edit

Partial calque of Old French surnoun, from Late Latin supernōmen, suprānōmen; equivalent to sur- +‎ name. Forms beginning with sir-, syr-, etc. represent reanalysis of the first element as sire.

Pronunciation

edit
  • IPA(key): /ˈsurnaːm(ə)/, /ˈsirnaːm(ə)/

Noun

edit

surname (plural surnames)

  1. epithet, nickname
    • c. 1330, Arthour and Merlin, section 5488:
      Þe .xxxix. Osoman, cert, His surname was: hardi of hert.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
    • c. 1400, "St. John Baptist", 928 in W. M. Metcalfe, Legends of the saints: in the Scottish dialect of the fourteenth century (1896), II 249:
      Þe thred herrod had alsua til his suornome agrippa.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
  2. surname, family name
  3. alias, appellation

Descendants

edit
  • English: surname

References

edit