This article is within the scope of WikiProject Anthroponymy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
the study of people's names on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AnthroponymyWikipedia:WikiProject AnthroponymyTemplate:WikiProject AnthroponymyAnthroponymy articles
The term "middle name" seems somewhat Western/Eurocentric. There are plenty of cultures where people have only 2 names (or one, or many, in all sorts of different orders, and that's just for starters).
Second, some names (see Burmese names) are given at any point in adulthood.
Suggested rewrite:
"A personal name (often called full name) typically comprises an individual's given name (bestowed at birth or at a young age) plus their middle name(s) and family name (surname)."
->
"A personal name (often called full name) typically, but not always, comprises an individual's given name or names (bestowed at birth or at a later age) and often a family name."
Huseyx2 (
talk)
22:33, 15 February 2014 (UTC)reply
Strangely Ethnocentric
A substantial number of people do not have patronymics, matronymics or family names and many have a variable number of name components. The Indonesian president for example, but the examplar for his class of people is apparently an American comedian with NFN as a kind of administrative first name.
124.188.147.73 (
talk)
09:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)reply
I think the cases of
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and
Teller are different. The first was born without a surname and adopted one, and the second was born with a first name and abandoned it. I wouldn't call this ethnocentric, although the target audience is native English speakers.
Tinynanorobots (
talk)
21:21, 18 June 2013 (UTC)reply
African use of eastern name order
In the name order section of this article, it's claimed that besides Hungary and the Far East, some African countries and/or cultures also use the eastern name order. I'm just curious as to what cultures use it, since I have yet to encounter any African who uses that name order. Can anybody give examples of cultures that do?
Nederbörd (
talk)
22:35, 2 May 2010 (UTC)reply
I don't have a source to cite, but from personal experience Rwandan naming convention usually uses names that can appear in different orders depending on the context. For example, the president of Rwanda is called Paul Kagame, but is often referred to as Kagame Paul as well (especially in formal or official settings). However this isn't exactly the same as Eastern naming convention, because most Rwandans do not use a family name or a patronymic. Usually they are given a religious (or secular Western) name such as John, Muhammad, or Leonard, followed by a traditional Kinyarwanda name such as Mugisha, Keza, or Habayimana.
41.186.78.91 (
talk)
20:16, 10 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I'm also sceptical about this, I've been researching a list to use as part of a name coding program and none of the African countries seem to use this order.
73.172.12.116 (
talk)
22:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)reply
Sentence fragment
It is nearly universal for a human to have a name; feral children growing up in isolation, or infants orphaned by natural disaster of whom no written record survives.
Is it true that in Romania the official order is surname - given name?
It may be like in italy where the official order is given name - surname but, for bureaucratic influence, many people tend to use the order surname - given name (although not considered correct).--
Carnby (
talk)
15:35, 17 May 2013 (UTC)reply
Brazilian "Middle" Names
What is written about Brazilian names in the introduction is not correct at all or - at best - is overly, yet still incorrectly, simplified to couch Brazilian naming standards within American naming convention. A Brazilian has one (or more) first names, followed by their mother's "maiden name" (the maternal grandfather's father's father's [ad nauseum] last name) and the father's father's [ad nauseum] last name.
So, if a hypothetical mother's name is Rosana di Paolo Tanaka and the father's name is Nelson Kowalski Rodrigues, their hypothetical children's full names might be Vaneusa Tanaka Rodrigues and Pedro Enrique Tanaka Rodrigues.
Tanaka is not a middle name in the American sense, it's part of the legal last name, coming from Rosana's father (maternal grandfather of the kids). If anything might be considered a "middle name" in the American sense it might be "Enrique" for the male child, though the Brazilian view would neither see it nor treat it in that sense for documentation or other purposes. Rather, his first name would be "Pedro Enrique" and his last names are Tanaka Rodrigues. When our hypothetical Vaneusa has children with a man named, say, "Stanislaus Carvalho Zimmerstein" their son might be named, João Rodrigues Zimmerstein.
We are using two different definitions of "personal name" in the lede alone
See
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy#So... what is the meaning of "personal name"? for details... In a nutshell, our lede has "A personal name or full name refers to the set of names by which an individual is known..." and then later in the lede says In Western culture, nearly all individuals possess at least one given name (also known as a personal name, first name, forename, or Christian name), together with a surname ..." emphasis added.
My research seems to show that "personal name" has three meanings: 1) full name, 2) only the first name, and 3) each term in the name (that is, "John Jacob Smith" has three personal names). I propose to edit the lede to that effect, absent counsel otherwise.
Herostratus (
talk)
04:09, 13 March 2016 (UTC)reply
Requested move 8 November 2016
The following is a closed discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a
move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the move request was: no consensus. Several editors suggested that there could be some restructuring of this and other related articles. That idea might merit further discussion, but at this time there is no consensus for the proposed renaming of this article as it currently stands.
BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (
contribs)
22:42, 23 November 2016 (UTC)reply
Research required. The article does not offer any citations to reliable sources to establish that "personal name" or "full name" mean what the article says they mean. I suggest finding reliable sources to establish what terminology is correct, then decide what, if anything, to do about the article title.
Jc3s5h (
talk)
22:21, 8 November 2016 (UTC)reply
Strong support: per
WP:SUPRISE, I don't understand how this article has stayed at this current title for so long! Personal name definitely sounds like a synonym for
given name, as in it is the personal part of one's name, as opposed to the shared element such as surname. I understand that such a justification may not apply universally to all cultures however 'full name' is unambiguous. If someone asks you to "state your full name" you write your whole name down, if someone were to ask for my personal name I would think they meant my first name or even a nickname. It's also worth noting that the first line of
given name states " given name (also known as a personal name, Christian name, first name, or forename) reaffirming my point that the current title of this article is at best ambigous and at worst just plain incorrect.
Ebonelm (
talk)
23:38, 8 November 2016 (UTC)reply
CommentOppose Well, the article is titled "Personal name" as it's a rather general one about names of persons (in contrast to other things, like
places). Wouldn't "Full name" imply a narrower scope? –
Uanfala (
talk)
11:25, 9 November 2016 (UTC)reply
Changing to "oppose": renaming the article could be an option only if there's some topic restructuring. At present the article is about the naming of people and the different naming systems there are out there in the world. A "full name" is merely one culture-specific way of selecting/arranging personal names. If there's any ambiguity, I'd support a move to
Personal naming or something similar. –
Uanfala (
talk)
22:37, 14 November 2016 (UTC)reply
@
Uanfala, I fail to see your reasoing why do you think that 'full name' is culturally specific? And which culture do you think this is specific to? An article on full names would still retain all the information about name ordering which is currently has. Western names tend to follow given name then surname, while Asian names tend to follow the rule of surname first then given name, etc. In both my examples those are still full names, and so both would still be explained in this article (as would the many other name ordering forms). I fail to see how a change in title to 'full name' would stop the article carrying out this explanatory function.
Ebonelm (
talk)
16:24, 16 November 2016 (UTC)reply
Ebonelm, I can't imagine opening an anthropology journal and finding a paper entitled "Full names among the Ugabuga". The concept of "full name" implies that an individual has several names and that there is a practice of using these names in a certain sequence in order to identify/refer to this individual in a certain context. This is not a universal. And even in the cultures where it's used, it doesn't cover the whole scope of anthroponymy. Take nicknames for example, they aren't normally considered part of the full name, are they? But the article has to cover them as well. At any rate, I support choosing a less ambiguous title, but not at the cost of narrowing the scope. –
Uanfala (
talk)
18:23, 16 November 2016 (UTC)reply
Support. This article is about full names. Since personal name can sometimes (usually? always?) refer to a given name, this should be moved so that the title unambiguously matches the scope. kennethaw88 •
talk07:40, 14 November 2016 (UTC)reply
Oppose While I understand the confusion with "given name", and also wish there were a better term, I think people here are staring at the problem from too short a distance and assuming context that a general encyclopedia reader doesn't have. Lots of things other than people have names and "full name" seems so broadly vague as to cover them all. The full name of FIFA is Fédération Internationale de Football Association. The full name of the UK is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The full name of
Rhode Island is State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The full name of cout is std::cout. While I'm fine with making "Full name" a redirect, as a primary article title I think it fails
WP:PRECISION. I'd bold full name in the lead per
MOS:BOLDSYN, but I think the greater specificity of the current title is better.
Put another way, "personal name" is narrower than we'd like, and implies the exclusion of family names. "Full name" has the opposite problem, and is too broad, implying subject matter far beyond people. Neither is as good a title as I'd wish for, but I think the former is less bad. It's easier to explain (and makes more sense) that we're interpreting it in the broader sense than to justify limiting "Full name" to people.
71.41.210.146 (
talk)
20:40, 17 November 2016 (UTC)reply
"Personal name" is kind of vague. My
given name is one of my personal names. My
surname is another of my personal names. My
middle name is another personal name. I suppose my
full personal name is my
given name +
middle name +
surname. Replace my middle name with my
middle initial, which is how I form my signature, an you have an "almost full personal name". We could move to
full personal name, or just keep the current title and explain these distinctions in the lead section of the article. I do not agree that "personal name definitely sounds like a synonym for given name". –
wbm1058 (
talk)
15:39, 18 November 2016 (UTC)reply
The Birth name redirect relates to this. Historically, that has redirected to
given name, but that redirected to
maiden name for the last six months of 2005.
When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of his or her spouse, that name replaces the person's [[birth name]], which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name.
No, the wife's given name is not her maiden name. This is all too common a problem on Wikipedia. Editors
overlink to everyday words that I'm sure they understand, believing however that others are stupid and need to have a link to the definition. Of course they overlook that everyday words have different meanings in different contexts, and stupidly link to the other article assuming that the context used in the article they're editing will be the context used at the link destination. /soapbox
Comment. The lead of this article says: "A person's full name usually identifies that person for legal and administrative purposes". That begs the question, what is the difference between a "personal name" and a
legal name? Can someone provide examples of people whose personal names and legal names are different? If nobody can, I think we may be in
content forking territory here.
wbm1058 (
talk)
16:57, 21 November 2016 (UTC)reply
Name at birth is another vague term, just like "personal name". It could mean
Given name at birth,
middle name at birth,
surname at birth or "personal name" at birth (see above for what "personal name" could mean). The only thing that "name at birth" definitely does not mean, is name after a
name change. Maybe this should just be a broad-concept article into which all ambiguous overlinks can be dumped for definitions of all the nuances and meanings of "personal name". –
wbm1058 (
talk)
17:55, 21 November 2016 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a
move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Requested move 25 November 2016
The following is a closed discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a
move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a
move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
diffuse into meaninglessness
when a plurality of names occur, some are specific to the individual, distinguishing them from related individuals (e.g.,
John Adams and
John Quincy Adams), while other names indicate the person's relationship to or membership in a family, clan, or other social structure (as for
Charles Philip Arthur George and one of his
namesakes), or even to unrelated others (e.g., as for
Leonardo DiCaprio and his
namesake).
Chuck's names include Philip because of his father, but one has no way of knowing, from the name alone, which (if any) is his father's; and so it does not indicate anything. And what relationship between the actor and the painter is indicated by their shared name?
There is no citation that I can find for the line about needing to rename a object/concept after a member of leadership bearing that name has died. I am also looking for a term that describes the given name based on stereotypical Native American "Sitting Bull" style after objects/concepts.
72.182.148.220 (
talk)
17:00, 22 August 2017 (UTC)reply
In earlier times, Scandinavian countries followed patronymic naming, with people effectively called "X's son/daughter" .... When people of this name convert to standards of other cultures, the phrase is often condensed into one word, creating last names like Jacobsen (Jacob's Son).
I wanna know why Hungarian (European) surnames use Eastern naming conventions similar to Japan,and the Philippines (Asian) using Western naming conventions much like from Europe or perhaps, the USA
119.95.114.132 (
talk)
07:53, 11 April 2024 (UTC)reply