Surname
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 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).
"James is my first name, and Smith is my surname."
- 2 the name used to identify the members of a family (as distinguished from each member's given name) wordnet
- 3 Synonym of epithet, an additional name, particularly those derived from a birthplace, quality, or achievement. obsolete
"Barsabas (whose syrname was Iustus)."
- 4 Synonym of nickname, an additional name given to a person, place, or thing, a byname. obsolete
"I have before declared that Baal was the Sun, and Baal Peor, a sirname, from a particular place of his worship."
- 5 The cognomen of Roman names. Classical-studies
- 1 To give a surname to. transitive
- 2 To call by a surname. transitive
"“Lord,” said Sir Launcelot, “I am hight Launcelot, and am surnamed ‘He of the Lake.’”"
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"In France, the first name goes before the surname."
Etymology
Inherited 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”), equivalent to sur- + name.
Related phrases
More for "surname"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.