Talk:Surname

Question

If surname does not always (or usually) refer to a family name, what should be the content of this article? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

There probably is worthwhile information that could be put in a "surname" article, but I don't know anything about it. I'd suggest this page be deleted as essentially a dictionary definition, but there are so many articles that are just lists of people with a given surname that I do think there should be a general article about surnames. Propaniac (talk) 17:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't usually edit stuff... but I passed by the article and thought that the introductory matter needed some serious help just in definition. The word is sur + name == over + name, meaning something like "common name" -- it historically identified your affiliation to some group, like family or clan.

Also, the construction "it is commonly synonymous with 'last name', since it is usually placed at the end of a person's given name" is a definition conveying incorrect information -- sequence has no relation to its synonymity. (That the "last name" is the family name is the reason, not it's position as the "last".) Duoas 2013 December 22 1:25 Z —Preceding undated comment added 01:24, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Redirect/combination

Why is this page not connected with family name or last name? (Yes, I do the the topic above; however, my question was not answered.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sorchah (talk • contribs) 01:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

• Because some surnames are not family names. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Surname is not a synonym for family name

The article is distinct from family name because it's about all last names, not just the last names that are family names. Several hundred years ago, members of the same family could very well have been James [the] Cooper and Anne [the] Baxter, based on their professions rather than their family. Even today, some people have a last name that is not based on what family they belong to, e.g. Angelina Jolie or Elton John. Ariadne55 (talk) 17:51, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

No. This article is a small, worse-than-useless stub. Common usage, as described by this article, is that "surname" and "family name" are synonyms. Last name redirects to family name, not here. Family name describes many things which are not family names including Icelandic patronyms and Spanish surnames. And of course your assertion that surnames are last names is wrong too; Chinese surnames are certainly not last names, and some people have neither surnames nor family names nor patronyms nor any kind of inherited name, but still have a last name.

In any case, I have no idea what a surname is according to this article; all I know from it is that "family name" is sometimes defined as a synonym of "surname" and that some surnames are family names and/or vice versa. From your comment I am no more enlightened.

By keeping this article separate it gives the many people who think that surnames are the same things as family names the impression that Wikipedia has a useless discussion of surnames. This makes the article worse than useless because Wikipedia does have an excellent discussion of surnames at family name. (The article does of course have a link to family name but because this article has lots of useless links like father, German and synonym, I don't think the chance of someone clicking them is substantially reduced.)

I will redirect the article back to family name again. If you want me to stop doing that: (a) redirect family name to surname or (b) make this a useful article or, at the very least, a useless one. But whatever: It needs to stop being worse than useless.

—Felix the Cassowary 05:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Felix, you cannot give options to users about what you will do to a page. IF you want to redirect the page, a consensus MUST be reached. If you cannot reach a conensus, then the redirect will not happen. Undeath (talk) 05:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

At the very least we should move this discussion to Family name. That article is the larger article and therefore we're more likely to get more opinions and/or content for here. I do not care if an article remains here at surname however the current article is worse than later and therefore I do most definitely care that it is not this worse-than-useless one. I do not know if there is a correct procedure for moving the discussion from here to there. —Felix the Cassowary 06:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC) PS: You apparently can give me options about what users can do to pages, but I can't?

What I give is not the same type of options that you were giving. Your options stated that you were going to do something against other's intentions if they didn't do something you wanted them to do. You were not following the right procedures to move/redirect/merge a page. I was pointing that out. Undeath (talk) 22:13, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

While the article definitely needs work, and the concept of surname is closely intertwined with "family name" in most western cultures, there are some very real and important differences between a surname and a family name, both in minority western cultures and in non-western cultures. Besides possibly being a family name, a surname may also be a patronymic or matronymic, or something else. For example, for a time in Norway, many surnames were two names, the combination of a patronymic or matronymic and a "farm name", the place where they lived, and which would change if they moved. However, most historical Norwegian figures were upper-class people who were of families that adopted the "family name" convention relatively early. There are also current cultures where the surname may change and is not based on a family name; for example, in India, it is not uncommon in some sub-groups for a person to change their surname to reflect their occupation; see Rajesh Pilot. Studerby (talk) 20:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I've added a small section at the bottom reflecting Rajesh Pilot's concerns. The information comes from the Icelandic names article, which had useful links and information on other languages as well. I think this shows a distinction between Surname and family name and justifies separate articles. Reconsideration (talk) 14:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Surnames after divorce CAN THE MAN MAKE THE EX CHANGE THERE NAME BACK?

````142.161.57.40 (talk) 01:03, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Theoretiaclly, are there becoming fewer days as time passes? Lots of couples marry every day, and in certain countries the wife takes the husband's surname as hers. Is this theoretically correct? Will there be fewer used surnames in the future? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unknown One (talk • contribs) 18:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Jewish surnames category deleted again; see discussion

Please see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 July 6#Category:Jewish surnames. Badagnani (talk) 22:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Where to place a new section, Matrilineal surnames

Place it in Family name? or in Surname? or in Matrilineality?

This new section is dependent upon a DNA presentation. DNA is already presented in Matrilineality, but would need to be added in Family name or in Surname. So I placed the new section in the Matrilineality article.

Also, I think adding Matrilineal surnames within Family name would muddy the latter's clear-flowing waters. Keeping Family name a purely patrilineal article would be less confusing for readers. For7thGen (talk) 20:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Usually articles seem to be overly focused on a view point of someone living in the United States... however this article seems to focus on every culture but American and/or English. Also I don't understand why this isn't just part of the Family name article Fjf1085 (talk) 02:19, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

The above comment by Fjf1085 dates from before major revision work to the article, which has greatly improved the overall situation. This includes merging and so forth, such that we now have surname, family name, and last name all on one page. That should make it easier to address the underlying consideration that something is drastically wrong in the way this article is skewed against native-speaker or Unites States English. For today I've simply fixed the weird reference to the OED that was actually to the website OUP runs. Perhaps this is related to the problem, as was perhaps the apparent December vandalism from 72.56.168.217 who may have been trying to address something related to Anglocentrism or who knows what. In any event, the Fjf1085 objection remains topical. Specifically the sentence: "In the English-speaking world, a surname is commonly referred to as a last name because it is usually placed at the end of a person's full name, after any given names" (the one vandalized) seems to beg for revision. One might naively expect a 'surname' be referred to as a "surname," as indeed it is by a substantial minority of native speakers ;-). There are two main reasons many Americans do not call the kind of name this article is about a surname: 1) the historical opposition of "surname" to "Christian name" as the two parts of a personal name, which makes "surname" sound oldfashioned, and 2) the other meaning of "surname" that we find in dictionaries, what we might term the Shakespearian meaning. This second meaning is the one I would use the word for, i.e. a name like "da Vinci" or "Redbeard" or, as Ariadne55 suggests in starting this section, the second word in "Elton John." Non-native speakers of English seem to prefer "surname" in the sense of "family name," so the older meaning is probably destined to fade, but it is instructive to note that it appeared more obsolescent to the 1930s editors of Merriam-Webster's Second Unabridged than to Gove's team on the Third in 1961. A glance at the real OED (second edition) confirms the established nature of the byname-nickname sense as late as Tennyson. I'll check the third edition of the real OED before attempting to rectify the issue. However, what would mean more to me is the thoughts of some of you other editors. I'm not sure the two I mentioned are still active. There needs to be something in the lede to clarify between dictionary definitions 1 and 2 of surname. If you are watching this page, please let me know how you feel about this non-synonymy problem. - phi (talk) 12:42, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Order of names

At one point in this section it's talking about Uralic name order, then it disconcertingly launches into a diatribe on Sami name changes without an appropriate lead-in. It reads very copy and paste. As I myself don't know enough about the subject matter and the only citation is a unrelated blog post in Norwegian, I would suggest that if the Sami section isn't rewritten, the paragraph should be deleted. Philip72 (talk) 09:34, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

External Link

Is that external link to [2] really meritorious? If the page was linking to such material, there are a number of better sources. This would be better as a reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.64.191.207 (talk) 23:18, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Semitic languages

The section on Hebrew patronymic surnames could usefully be expanded to clarify whether the similar constructions in other Semitic languages (Aramaic bar-, Arabic ibn- and bin-) are also used as surnames, or only as true patronyms. AmirOnWiki (talk) 12:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

merge

Just count the number of occurrences of "family name" in the surname article and vice-versa. Fgnievinski (talk) 13:26, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Two separate, even though congruent in most of western society, and distinct concepts - articles do not need to be merged. Perhaps a little copy-editing to remove the repetitiousness? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Notwillywanka (talk • contribs) 22:51, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Given the existing overlap, a single article highlighting the distinction, would be more appropriate. Fgnievinski (talk) 23:41, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Only existing overlap, is in "Western" society. One concept is a position (order) of name, First/middle/last, the other is a hereditary name a family name, and it's "overlap" is that in western society the last name is the family name and the surname. A Surname is not necessarily a family name, a last name is not necessarily a family name, nor is a family name necessarily a last name. Wikipedia is a Worldwide encyclopedia, and it needs to be written with that in mind, not just one "society" view of something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Notwillywanka (talk • contribs) 02:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

"In Chinese, last names come first" is perfectly straightforward to any native English speaker and rather belies your point (albeit you're right we wouldn't want to use last name as the main article space, owing to concern about WP:BIAS). I'm confused as to what you think "surname" means, though, since it's what they were actually talking about and since it has nothing to do with order. — LlywelynII 02:41, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

1) ...except They're not distinct concepts and it has nothing to do with "Western society" but with the English language. From the above comments, it seems some editors think that "last name" and "surname" are synonyms while "family name" is distinct; in fact, it's the opposite: "surname" and "family name" are synonyms and general, while "last name" is the one that is (on its face) Western-specific. Per the OED:

surname: The name which a person bears in common with the other members of his family...; a family name

family name: A hereditary name shared by members of the same family, as distinct from a given or personal name; a surname.

Here at the English Wiki, we should avoid WP:POVFORKs based on distinctions that simply aren't made in the English language and stick with using the WP:ENGLISH WP:COMMONNAMEs of our topics. They should simply be merged. Whether we should go to "surname" or "family name" depends on relative frequency of use; I like surname since it's shorter but if people really use "family name" more often these days, we should go with that. I understand that even though "last name" is certainly more common than either, there are sensible objections to using it in order to cover all surnames across all cultures. Still, per WP:CONCISE, we should just go with one and redirect from the others: there's really no need for something needlessly long like surnames, family names, and last names (names).

2) If there is some specialized sense of either term in anthropology (which I frankly doubt) and editors can find WP:RSes to vouch for them, they could be spun off to family name (anthropology) or some such... but even such sources don't alter the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of these namespaces being the exact same.

3) Somewhat bizarrely, "last name" is the one of these that legitimately doesn't overlap with the other two and yet finds no defenders. I have no problem with it redirecting to the merged article (the primary sense is certainly surnames) but it (technically) covers straight patronyms, epithets, &c. that are not passed down within families. — LlywelynII 02:23, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to move this conversation over to Family name, since regardless of "surname"'s equality, the other has a longer history, is bigger, and has more links and eyes at the moment. — LlywelynII 03:26, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Nevermind, it would make the rfc messy. Here's the link, though. — LlywelynII 04:26, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

"Last name" was not proposed to be merged with these. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Notwillywanka (talk • contribs) 04:37, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

second meaning

Yes, some modification of [[last name] will no doubt be in order after the merger has been completed. Another problem that will need to be addressed is the second dictionary sense of "surname," i.e. something between a nickname and a (needed) epithet. The textbook example used by Merriam-Webster is "da Vinci" and we can add "of Arabia" and "Barbarossa" or "Redbeard" and "the Great" and "the Conqueror" to this list. I was taught in school (in the United States) that "surname" applied in these cases and was a sort of nickname but called "surname" precisely to distinguish it from the "family name," which might be, say, Hohenstaufen. The intro to the new article should make some allowance for this. Initially it might link to byname.

I'll look forward to the merged version. - phi (talk) 17:10, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Except that I no longer am looking forward to this. See comment below.- phi (talk) 19:10, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

"See Also" section of article

I added a link to the article on Naming Law. (This is in addition to the link to Surname Law which exists already.) The Naming Law article presently discusses mostly rules about what given names may be used in different countries, but some of its content may relate to surnames as well (e.g. bans on diacritical remarks in California, regulations about characters that may be used in a name). Moreover, the Naming Law article itself should probably be expanded to reflect general rules for names that apply to both given names and surnames, especially since many parents in the U.S. (and probably elsewhere) choose to name their child with a surname that is a combination or (and different from) the surname of either parent. [As a separate point, the articles on Naming Law and Surname Law should refer to each other and perhaps should be merged, especially since the current article on Naming Law has almost no content. I will add notes to those articles.]--WvomSaal (talk) 17:01, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The opening paragraph seems strange

"A surname or family name is a name added to a given name. In many cases, a surname is a family name and many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"." How I read this: 1. SN (=FN)= N added to GN. 2. Often SN = FN, & many dictionaries say SN = FN. Seems weird to me because in 1, SN=FN but then in 2, SN OFTEN = FN. 64.53.191.77 (talk) 22:15, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I was confused by the same thing. It should be fixed by now, but I am a little unsure about the correct way to go about it—striking the second sentence seems to lose a somewhat important nuance. Thomas Tvileren (talk) 10:25, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

"Derived from a nickname"? I would call this "derived from a characteristic [of an ancestor]." 2001:470:D:468:5C0F:D2D:F26B:5913 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:34, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Order of names: Austria

I don't have any sources for this right now but in Austria the surname is very rarely placed before the given name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.115.163.62 (talk) 09:56, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

The sentence says "But there are parts of Europe that also follow the Eastern Order, such as Hungary, Austria and adjacent areas of Germany (that is, Bavaria)". I don't know about Austria, but being from Bavaria I can confirm that it is common there (and often things are similar in Austria) to put the last name first, but with an s appended (presumably making it a type of genitive) and usually prefixed with an article, so "Klaus Mair" would the called "der Mairs Klaus", "Maria Schindler" would be "die Schindlers Maria" etc. This is oral only, nobody would write their name like this, but in spoken language, it is quite common.

Fuse these two articles, please

Family name Surname — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.159.217.2 (talk) 10:54, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Please don't. I was resigned to this merge fourteen months ago (as above) but have been thinking on it and can no longer support the merge. There is just too much difference in secondary meanings and nuances between the two expressions, surname and family name, in my experience. There are just too many surnames that are not family names. For some, "Desiderius" was a surname taken by Erasmus, etc. If I am wrong, i.e. if there really is a consensus in favor of this merge, do we have a draft of the merged version? Otherwise, I propose removing the recent merge tag and trying to improve the two articles in parallel. Am I missing something? - phi (talk) 19:21, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Per Desiderius (given name), Desiderius is a given name, not a surname. As for the primary topic Desiderius, that appears to be a mononym. Monarchs and other royalty, for example Napoleon, have traditionally availed themselves of the privilege of using a mononym. There are many names that can be used as either given names or surnames, e.g. Wilson (name):

• List of people with surname Wilson
• List of people with given name Wilson

You missed the discussion at Talk:Family name§Merger proposal: Consensus to merge of Family name into surname per wp:SNOW.

I'm getting started on this. It will take a while, and I may take several steps to implement this. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:29, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

So as I look at these two articles, which I haven't studied before, I see a lot of content, and a full merge doesn't seem practical. Some form of summary style restructuring is needed here, I think. Taking a look at the history, to see how we got to this point:

Family name is the older of the two. Its history dates back to the beginning of Wikipedia. September 15, 2001 – when it was edited by Larry Sanger himself. Surname was created as a redirect to family name on August 15, 2002. A content fork at that title wasn't started until December 11, 2007. At the time, family name was a well-developed article. Family name became "a type of surname". To see what other types of surnames there might be, look at the new surname article, which was labeled as a disambiguation page, though it didn't look like one. The {{disambiguation}} tag was removed after just ten days ("This is clearly not a disambiguation page; it may not be more than a dicdef").

To make this early version of the surname page conform to MOS:DAB, it should read:

Surname may refer to:

• Family name, a name added to a given name and a part of a personal name; the family name meaning first surfaced in 1375. Many dictionaries use surname as a synonym of "family name."
• Nickname, a name indicating a circumstance of birth
• Epithet, indicating a characteristic, or an achievement

References

With the {{disambiguation}} tag removed; from that followed a request to {{expand}} the article from its "dictionary-definition-stub status".

The "epithet" meaning and the link to nickname were removed with this 18 April 2008 edit, essentially removing the raison d'être for creating this "dab-fork". It seems to me:

• A surname is not a nickname, per se, rather a surname may be derived from a nickname
  • Name etymologists classify European surnames under five categories, depending on their origin: given name, occupational name, location name, nickname [2], and ornamental name. A nickname is just one of five categories of surnames.
  • A family name can also be derived form a nickname
• An epithet (from Greek: ἐπίθετον epitheton, neut. of ἐπίθετος epithetos, "attributed, added") is a byname, or a descriptive title, e.g. Suleiman the Magnificent. I suppose one could think of "the Magnificent" as a surname, or a surname derived from an epithet, but as of today neither Family name nor Surname contains the word "epithet". wbm1058 (talk) 00:07, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Family name, often referred to as a last name, was "a type of surname" until this 18 December 2011 edit changed it to "often referred to as a surname or 'last name'". wbm1058 (talk) 00:33, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Categories, types or classifications of surnames

• Surname § Formation says "Name etymologists classify European surnames under five categories, depending on their origin: given name (6), occupational name (1), location name (4,5), nickname (2), and ornamental name (3). This classification can be extended to surnames originating elsewhere."
• Family name § English-speaking countries says: "Most surnames of British origin fall into seven types:"
  1. Occupational name
  2. Personal characteristics – this is the Nickname or Epithet type
  3. Geographical features
  4. Toponymic surname: Place names
  5. Estate names: Territorial designation?
  6. Patronymics, matronymics or ancestral, often from a person's given name
  7. Patronal from patronage

References

• See also Scottish surnames § Categorisation of Scottish surnames – I suppose there may be other categorizations for other ethnic groups; I haven't done a thorough search

These will need some reconciliation, as there isn't a totally straightforward overlap between these. It's possible that different name etymologists (who?) will devise slightly differing classifications. Some names might fall in multiple classifications.

Getting back to the idea that a family name is "a type of surname", and there are "many surnames that are not family names".
Right, John (the) Carpenter is an unmarried orphan with no relatives, and none of his genetic ancestors were ever carpenters. So the name is not a "family name", that is, until John does get married, and has a son who grows up to be a rocket scientist. Then the occupational name Carpenter has been transformed into a mere family name. As this can happen to any name, there is no such thing as a surname that is not a (potential) family name. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:39, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Hmm. One of the cited sources, per the book summary on Amazon, says there are four broad classes of surnames: first-names, localities, occupations, nicknames – that is, classes of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish surnames in the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth and the United States. wbm1058 (talk) 14:23, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

And the TOC of other cited source indicates that surnames may be grouped into several more less broadly-construed categories.

Its preview on Amazon indicates that surnames predate family names. Initially, when John (the) Carpenter died, his surname died with him. His son might have been named Paul (the) Cooper. It was at some later point that surnames became family names – when Cooper's son inherited the name, even if he didn't take up the profession. So, essentially, in modern usage sur- and family-name are equivalent, unless someone can cite a society somewhere in the world where they aren't. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Surname classifications contributed by this 14 October 2009 edit. I was saddened when I looked at their user page. wbm1058 (talk) 18:58, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Patrilineal vs. Patronymic

• wikt:patrilineal: Pertaining to descent through male lines.
• wikt:patronymic: Name acquired from one's father's, grandfather's or earlier (male) ancestor's first name. Some cultures use a patronymic where other cultures use a surname or family name; other cultures (like Russia) use both a patronymic and a surname.

See Patronymic surname. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:42, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Matrilineal vs. Matronymic

• wikt:matrilineal: Tracing descent only through female lines. See Matrilineal surname (Matriname)
• wikt:matronymic: A surname or byname acquired from the given name of one's mother's or from a female ancestor's given name. See Matronymic surname.

Hmm, List of people who adopted matronymic surnames. Shouldn't that be List of people who adopted matrilineal surnames? wbm1058 (talk) 21:44, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Family name merged to surname

• I have completed merging the most important content of Family name to Surname, per the consensus above.
• The remaining content of Family name has been restructured and moved to Surnames by country. This was too much to fit comfortably on a single page. This is in conformance with Wikipedia:Summary style.
• The former Family name talk page is now at Talk:Surnames by country.
• While doing this complex reorganization, I filled in a few gaps with the help of "A Dictionary of Surnames", the Hanks & Hodges book, which I checked out from my local library. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:36, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorting out an old addition

The 14:59, 24 August 2011 version said:

In Japan and Hong Kong (China), when people of Japanese or Hong Kong Chinese origin, respectively, write their personal name in the Latin alphabet, it is common to reverse the order of the given and family names for the convenience of Westerners. Hungarians do the same when interacting with other Europeans. Reversing the order of names is also somewhat common in Estonian and Finnish, which are Uralic languages like Hungarian.

This 16:29, 25 August 2011 edit, rationale: "I removed {Citation needed}: just go to Finland, Estonia or even Karelia and read or listen to the people... Edited, completed about the Finns, I'll do more about that (later)", changed the text to:

In Japan and Hong Kong (China), when people of Japanese or Hong Kong Chinese origin, respectively, write their personal name in the Latin alphabet, it is common to reverse the order of the given and family names for the convenience of Westerners. Hungarians do the same when interacting with other Europeans. Reversing the order of names is also customary for the Baltic Fennic peoples and the and the Hungarians — as it was the norm until recently, when integration into the EU and accelerated international exchanges pushed many people to reverse the order of their full name to given name - surname, so that they are not called Ms. Rauha (a first name), just like Japanese, some Koreans, Chinese or some Vietnamese do, for the same reason.

References

The next editor, with the edit summary: "ugh... i hope someone else can make sense of it.... i did the best i could!", changed it to:

In Japan and Hong Kong (China), when people of Japanese or Hong Kong Chinese origin, respectively, write their personal name in the Latin alphabet, it is common to reverse the order of the given and family names for the convenience of Westerners. Hungarians do the same when interacting with other Europeans. Reversing the order of names is also customary for the Baltic Fennic peoples and the Hungarians, but other Uralic peoples didn't need surnames, because of the clanic structure of their societies. Surnames have been imposed by the dominant authorities: evangelists, then administrations. Thus, the Samis saw no change or a transformation of their name, for example: some Sire became Siri, Hætta Jáhkoš Ásslat became Aslak Jacobsen Hætta — as it was the norm until recently, when integration into the EU and accelerated international exchanges pushed many people to reverse the order of their full name to given name - surname, so that they are not called Ms. Rauha (a first name), just like Japanese, some Koreans, Chinese or some Vietnamese do, for the same reason.

References

The current version:

When those from Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong write their personal name in the Latin alphabet, it is common to reverse the order of the given and family names for the convenience of Westerners, so that they know which name is the family name for official/formal purposes. Reversing the order of names for the same reason is also customary for the Baltic Fennic peoples and the Hungarians, but other Uralic peoples traditionally did not have surnames, perhaps because of the clan structure of their societies. Surnames have been imposed by the dominant authorities: evangelists, then administrations. Thus, the Samis saw no change or a transformation of their name. For example: some Sire became Siri, Hætta Jáhkoš Ásslat became Aslak Jacobsen Hætta — as was the norm. Recently, integration into the EU and increased communications with foreigners prompted many Samis to reverse the order of their full name to given name followed by surname, to avoid their given name being mistaken for and used as a surname.

References

I'm still having trouble parsing this. It seems like too much detail for this level. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:02, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

So, just wait wait long enough and a vandal will sort it out for you! Thanks, 2600:6C5A:4C7F:FF31:D519:A4B5:64F7:563A. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:00, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

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José Luis Zapatero

Zapatero or Lorca, for example, are mentioned by their second surname without saying their first name. “Federico Lorca” or “José Luis Zapatero” wouldn’t be used. Ibn Gabirol (talk) 15:39, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Unclear or Unknown Meaning

"The meanings of some names are unknown or unclear. The most common European name in this category may be the Irish name Ryan, which means 'little king' in Irish Gaelic.[31][34] Also, Celtic origin of the name Arthur, meaning 'bear'" This needs to be clarified. It says some names' meanings are unknown then proceeds to give examples of such names and what they mean ?? Venqax (talk) 20:23, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Ayers

Ayers is a company of organic farming setup in 1934 Murthy412 (talk) 19:13, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Common Surnames by Ethnic Group

This section of the article a) has little citations and b) only includes a few subjectively-chosen ethnic groups. I assume this section of the article was created to list surnames of non-dominant ethnic groups who don't have their common surnames under "Common Surnames of [insert country/continent here] articles or sections. But, I think this section should either be: split up and moved to other articles (e.g. move Tibetan surnames under China, and Assyrian to Asia/Middle East), created into its own article, or just deleted.

Mrpants106 (talk) 05:50, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

You stop watching this for a while, and all hell breaks loose!

I put a lot of hours into cleaning this article up, and then this joker 64.110.241.161 comes along and triggers an earthquake @15:54, 4 January 2019.

Was that vandal reverted?? No, their edit was endorsed @06:28, 28 February 2019! Sigh, wbm1058 (talk) 19:47, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Technonym

An editor insists of the usage of the term "technonymic surname" instead of "occupational surname" as section title. I find it dubious that "Cook" or "Fisher" may be called technonyms. In any case, this usage must be extremely rare and cannot be used as tht main term in wikipedia, since Google search does not give valid references (the term is used in other meanings, it particular commonly as a typo for "teknonym", see eg [3]).

The editor provides the reference " Cottle, Basil. Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967" Please provide the exact citation from this book, since it is not visible. Lembit Staan (talk) 17:30, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, please do not change redirects until the disagreement is resolved. Lembit Staan (talk) 19:00, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Quebec surnames

Inside the compound section, should we add info about Quebec compound surnames (Canadian name) ? Bohemien100 (talk) 16:15, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

non-English names

Occupational names include Smith, Miller, Farmer, Thatcher, Shepherd, Potter, and so on, as well as non-English ones, ...

No kidding? If this is not an article about surnames in the English-speaking world, I would suggest ending the sentence with something like and analogous names in many other languages. —Tamfang (talk) 01:37, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

No kidding? What stops you? --Altenmann >talk 02:33, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I have grown less BOLD in my old age —Tamfang (talk) 01:25, 5 November 2024 (UTC)