noun, verb ·Top 500 ·Middle school level
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"James is my first name, and Smith is my surname."
"Barsabas (whose syrname was Iustus)."
"I have before declared that Baal was the Sun, and Baal Peor, a sirname, from a particular place of his worship."
"“Lord,” said Sir Launcelot, “I am hight Launcelot, and am surnamed ‘He of the Lake.’”"
"In France, the first name goes before the surname."
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).
Common synonyms include: family name, last name, cognomen, aalto, abbott, abel.
In France, the first name goes before the surname.
Pronounced /ˈsɜːˌneɪm/.
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.