family name

Also known as last name, fam name, family surname, surname, clan name

thumb|300px|First/given/forename, middle, and last/family/surname with John F. Kennedy|John Fitzgerald Kennedy as example. This shows a structure typical for Anglophonic cultures (and some others). Other cultures use other structures for full names.

AI overview

A family name, also called a surname or last name, is the portion of a person's full name that they share with other members of their family. In many cultures, including English-speaking ones, it comes last in a person's name (as in John Fitzgerald Kennedy, where Kennedy is the family name), though the position and structure of names varies across different cultures around the world.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Subclass of: anthroponym
Part of: full name
Named after: name
Image: Most common last name.jpg
Said to be same as: xing

Show 9 more facts

equivalent class: dbpedia.org/ontology/Surname
Commons category: Surnames
topic's main category: Category:Surname
described by source: Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia
topic has template: Template:Infobox family name
maintained by WikiProject: WikiProject Anthroponymy
P8168: Segudet
entry in abbreviations table: Familienn.
P13411: Bengaluru

Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~31 min read

Encyclopedic overview

29 sections

Contents

History
Origin
Medieval era and beyond
Modern era
Origins of particular surnames
Patronymic and matronymic surnames
Examples
Cognominal surnames
Ornamental/artificial surnames
Acquired/assigned surnames
Occupational surnames
Toponymic surnames
Patronage
Other
Order of names
Gender-specific versions of surname
Surname law
Surname of women
Compound surnames
English
Chinese
Multiple surnames
Spanish-speaking countries
Compound surnames
Prevalence of particular surnames
See also
References
Further reading
External links

In many societies, a surname, last family name, or first family name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. 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. In modern times most surnames are hereditary, although in most countries a person has a right to change their name.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “family name” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.