Wiktionary

surname

EnglishEdit

 
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Alternative formsEdit

EtymologyEdit

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].

PronunciationEdit

NounEdit

surname (plural surnames)

  1. (obsolete) An additional name, particularly those derived from a birthplace, quality, or achievement; an epithet.
  2. (obsolete) An additional name given to a person, place, or thing; a byname or nickname.
    • 1638, Abraham Cowley, Davideis, IV:
      I have before declared that Baal was the Sun, and Baal Peor, a sirname, from a particular place of his worship.
  3. The name a person shares with other members of that person's family, distinguished from that person's given name or names; a family name.
    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.
  4. (Classical studies) The cognomen of Roman names.
  5. (Scotland, obsolete) A clan.
    • 1455 in J. D. Marwick, Charters of Edinburgh (1871), 79:
      The surnam and nerrest of blude to the said Williame.

Usage notesEdit

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. In fact, the nomen was the surname as the word is commonly understood today but the terms were first applied when surname was still used in the sense of "additional" or "added" name: the cognomen was added to the nomen to show the branch of the family involved. (The modern translation of a similar distinction in ancient Chinese names customarily uses ancestral name and clan name instead and typically speaks of surnames only once the two merged into a single and commonly-employed family name.)

SynonymsEdit

HypernymsEdit

TranslationsEdit

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VerbEdit

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.

TranslationsEdit

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary. "surnoun, n."

AnagramsEdit

Middle EnglishEdit

Alternative formsEdit

EtymologyEdit

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.

PronunciationEdit

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

NounEdit

surname (plural surnames)

  1. epithet, nickname
    • c. 1330, Arthour and Merlin, 5488:
      Þe .xxxix. Osoman, cert, His surname was: hardi of hert.
    • 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.
  2. surname, family name
  3. alias, appellation
    • c. 1395, Wycliff's Bible, Ecclus. XLVII 19:
      In the name of the Lord, to whom the surname [toname in the 1382 ed.] is God of Israel.

DescendantsEdit

  • English: surname

ReferencesEdit

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