Naming Traditions Around The World
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- čas přidán 28. 09. 2023
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SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Personal Names: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona...
Naming Customs: obaninternational.com/blog/ho...
Naming Traditions: www.ethnictechnologies.com/bl...
Different Surname Traditions: blog.myheritage.com/2018/04/s...
Eastern Name Order: www.china.org.cn/opinion/2019-...
Czech/Slavic Names: www.washingtonpost.com/world/...
Portugese Names: culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/port...
Spanish Names: culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/span...
Lakota Names: www.lakotamall.com/common-nam...
Lithuanian Names: www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/...
Icelandic Names: icelandwithaview.com/iceland-...
How are names formed in your part of the world?
czcams.com/video/mRTGIJAlqyE/video.html The Arabic naming system is fascinating.
Nothing unique
So, as you've noted eastern slavic surnames are gendered, but I must add that only "native" ones are. If your surname comes from foreign language, most likely it will stay the same no matter what gender the person is. For example, Alexander Blok's - a russian writer - surname is Blok, but a lady from his family would still have the same surname; no suffixes added.
Also, an often missed in the west bit about slavic names are patronymics - a third part of a name, following the surname. Those pretty much work like islandic second names: they are derived from one's farther's name and are gendered. So, a son of Ivan would be Name Surname Ivanovich, a daughter would be Name Surname Ivanovna. They are really important parts of one's name - usage different combination of person's name, name-connected nickname, surname and patronymic denotes the level of politeness.
@@astra9459it's a bit similar in Lebanon, where the father's name is used like a middle name (no suffix though). When I did my paper works in the US I just left the middle name empty, because it's not really a middle name (in the sense that people can't use it to call me).
@@rudmillahnowrin9151 same
Japanese names being flipped in English introduces just enough uncertainty that you always think you know which is which, but are never sure
That's the reason for a lot of frustration in me, because I'd like the names to be flipped _never_ when they are written down in other languages. But they sometimes do flip the eastern and Hungarian names. Sometimes, but not always!
As a Hungarian, I flip my name as part of translation when I speak or write in foreign languages, because I do not assume that foreigners know about our system.
For me, I interchangeably use both when it comes to Japanese names, depending on the website/platform I go to.
What really makes it confusing is that it's not done consistently, often they reverse Japanese names when written in English text but it's not uncommon to leave it in the original order, either. It's especially confusing when both names could be a given name or a surname.
We write Japanese names backwards even if they originally have the same order as ours, because they typically come through English. We keep foreign names in their normal order and people thought Japanese as foreign.
For Slavic names you forgot to talk about patronyms. A lot of westerners confuse them for middle names
Also confused them for last names plenty of times, plus nicknames can make that confusion worse if you're not used to that being commonplace
Yeah lol, I was like "what the hell you skipped the most unique part of Slavic names"
To be fair, the tradition for US and UK middle names is to take a grandparent's or parental sibling's name usually.
So it's almost similar.
Technically almost identical to the Icelandic mechanism described in the video.
I'm pretty sure we use Last+First+Patronim.. and he said it's the same as western just gendered. 🤔
The Portuguese tradition of marriage was not to take your spouses last name at all. The reason why it started was because it was popular in France so many started copying that tradition but it’s not a native tradition.
It certainly caught on. It is more the norm than the exception in Brazil.
Although in Medieval and Colonial times, it was rather common to give a different last name to each of your children as you see fit without any concern for continuity.
@@sohopedeco It was the same in Spanish. Standardized rules for surnames only began in the 19th century, with the expansion of the state apparatus and the need of better record keeping.
@@sohopedeco most women in brazil don't change their name at all
@@strngmgc I think it's about 70% who change against 30% who don't if you compare about all age groups.
It's only more than half if you include couples who don't marry formally.
@@sohopedeco the civil registry only recognises formal marriages and they provide the numbers. the percentage of women who change their names has fallen massively and i don't think it was ever as high as 70%. in the period of 2011 - 2020 it was 45% and before that was 52.5%. i have many formally married friends in many brazilian states and zero of them changed their names, it's not common at all.
Dutch surnames can be pretty funny and strange, like "Naaktgeboren" (Born Naked), "De Dikke" (The Fat), "Piem/Piemel" (Willy/Penis), Iemandszoon (Someone's Son). This is because Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the Netherlands and in 1811 required all Dutch people to have and register a surname by law. Many Dutch people didn't really have one, or wanted to troll their French occupiers so they made up funny surnames that still last til today.
EDIT I'm incorrect about Naaktgeboren. The surname existed before Napoleon.
I think it's a universal thing that when people who didn't previously have a surname are required to take one, At least some of them will make up something silly. When German Jews were required to take surnames, One of them chose the name Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvorangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolfhunderttausendjahresvorandieerscheinenvonderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgenachtmittungsteinundsiebeniridiumelektrischmotorsgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchennachbarschaftdersternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneuerassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortpflanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvorandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum, which was then later inherited by the two people with the longest full names (Father and son, they had the same name.)
That's actually kind of badass
Okay, now THAT needs its own video! Hey, Patrick!
Le troll, haha!!
Nog nooit van de achternaam "Piemel" gehoord😂
In Russian and Arabic the "middle name" is actually the patronymic (name of the father), and there are no independent middle names like in the Western naming tradition.
It’s not a Russian thing, it’s a Slavic thing. In Bulgaria you get a patronymic (or a matronymic if you’re born to a single woman and not recognised by your father).
During the times of communism some people also had to replace their surnames with their father’s patronymic to distance themselves from a family history that didn’t sit well with the ruling party. Eg. - my mom’s grandparents were Spaska and Friedrich Zilberman (unusual for Bulgaria name of German Jewish origin, her grandfather wasn’t Bulgarian), but the authorities only allowed her mom and aunts to be named Spasova (which should really have been Spasina, because it’s clearly a matronymic).
@@Firewalkerbg Cool stories, pal, now here`s the thing: no one here claimed patronyms to be an exclusive feature of Russian (or Arabic at that matter). Perhaps you phrased it oddly, but that read as a clear pretension, and that irks the eye quite much, I`m gonna say. Also, how could a German-Jewish name sit wrong with the party? It might all have been just an effort to homogenize surname giving scheme, because at the initial stages of mass family names distribution, there were possibilities abundant to get something mixed up, especially in such a relatively newly formed state as Bulgaria back then. Other than that, it`s not a double surname, which was indeed percepted as something obsolete, so that`s my guess.
@@Firewalkerbgit is a Slavic tradition, except we don't do it in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Slovenia...
He did talk about two "last" names, he just used Spain as the example.
@@jon9103not the same
The Spanish tradition of double family name, is amazingly useful for genealogical studies, especially if coupled with a great variety of family names in a given group, like the Basque. it makes research extremely easy.
Also much more practical not changing last names when marrying (what a bourocratic nightmare) and honouring always were you come from
Latelly, you are alowed to change the order of the surnames. Which may make this studies a little more difficult. Is now done because families with only daughters will lost the lineage otherwise.
not at all since there are many people with the same last name and they have nothing to do with anyone and besides because if there are children not recognized by their father they automatically take the mother's last name and this is already something common, so getting to the real ones origins through the surname are not easy as it seems
@HjuliM if you say that there are lots of people with the same family name in Basques for example you clearly have no idea what you are talking about or have never done a genealogical research.
I confuse if Pedro pascal married Salma Hayek, and they a son name Juan, what would Juan complete name ?
In Kenya, our given names are based around what happened during our birth, so the weather, time in the day, or location influence it. for example, the name Atieno means you were born at night while Achieng means you were born in the day, etc. there are tons of different naming systems in africa, though; but this is the one my tribe uses :)
That's cool. Please keep your culture. It's a benefit to the world
that’s a lovey tradition. You may not remember what the day of your birth was like, but your name can fill you in!
hey omera my fellow luo
We have the same here in Namibia. Naufiku would be a name given to a girl born at night, whilst Haufiku would be the name given to a boy born at night. (there's others for other times of day, circumstances of birth and a whole host of other things as well.)
Whoa!! 😮 This is so interesting and beautiful 🥰
Thank you for sharing the wonders of your tribe traditions with the world 💖
Regards from Southamerica ✌️
In Slavic countries, there is also a patronymic used as a middle name. So if a man named Mikhail had a son Nikolai, the son's name would be Nikolai Mikhailovich. Mikhail's daughter Ivana would be Ivana Mikhailovna. There is a protocol for when to use just the forename, just the patronym, and both.
only east slavs
@@stroggosaw299 South too
@@arandominternetperson4462yeah Bulgarian patronymics can be a bit confusing because they use the same suffix as last names do, and also because most surnames derive from male names
after seeing that Hristo Stoichkov was actually Hristo Stoichkov Stoichkov I didn't really immediately realise there even was a patronymic
It variates in different slavic languages. In my country if Mihail has a son Georgi, his patronymic would be Georgi Mihailov. His daughter Maria's patronymic would be Maria Mihailova.
@@arandominternetperson4462 only in Bulgaria
Malay-Muslim people in Malaysia follow a patronymic system. "Fatimah binti Zakaria" means Fatimah daughter of Zakaria. "Omar bin Azman" means Omar son of Azman. "Bin/Binti" here means "son of/daughter of", not middle names.
Muzlem names are just Arabic name most of the time
Same with the mostly Christian Dayaks in Sarawak, "Peter anak Gordon" means "Peter, child of Gordon"
So like Iceland, children's surnames are derived from their father's given name?
@@AtarahDerekit's not derived from, it's just the name without modification. For example, "Peter anak John" is a person named Peter and his father is named John
Arab imperialism annihilates indigenous cultures and peoples yet again
I'm from Hungary, living in Japan and people here have just begun to recognize that we have the same order of names, "family name, given name". However, in Hungarian we have "middle name" too which goes to the very last, being a "second given name". In Hungary, it was also common in aristocracy to use both paternal and maternal family names since neither of them wanted to lose their noble names, and also the name of the place they newly inherited. While in Japan, noblemen in the old era sometimes used just one 'kanji' from each families and created a new family name that refers to all of them.
In addition in Hungary, the married women used to take their husbands' names and drop their own while adding the 'né' suffix ('nő' meaning woman, 'né' meaning wife, but only used as a suffix). For example if the husband's name is Kovács János (John Smith), the wife's name will be Kovács Jánosné (Mrs John Smith), and you will never know her forename if you don't know her. But recently, (around the millenium) women started to change that, either only taking their husband's surname, like Szabó Éva (Eve Taylor) can become Kovács Éva after her husband, or keeping their maiden name and using their husband's surname too: Kovács-Szabó Éva, or Szabó-Kovács Éva, or taking their husband's name with the 'né' sufix, but also keeping their maiden name: Kovácsné Szabó Éva or just Szabó Éva. Very confusing! :)
@@boglarkabalazs7129 Erre mondta Csenki Attila, hogy házasodáskor a neje neve is legyen "Csenki Attila", mert nincs az a kretén, aki összekeverné őket.
In Indonesia, most of the names don't have surname system. They just use any names and make each kids their own surnames. Like one child can be named Cantika Sastrawati, the second child can be different like Faisal Yuda Alvaro, or even just one name like Asep. But then again, there are also other ethnic groups having the surname system, like the Batak ethnic, which has their own family surnames like Sihombing, Hutapea, ButarButar, etc.
Edit: And once someone is married, they don't need to change any surnames. Birth names are usually kept, regardless.
Yup, i don't even have a last name, i only have 1 word name🤣
Me an indonesian having no surname but plans to give my future generation one, "Soehardjo"
Also the Balinese system they have when Wayan is given to the firstborns, Made to the 2nds, Nyoman to the 3rds, Ketut to the 4ths
@@newbabies923 That's called a mononym.
@@yogaandikasaputra3214 me toooooo, i kinda hate that my mom forget to put my grandpa's name as my last name. but if i have a child i would like to put "soemidjo" on it
In Portugal and Brazil (and other portuguese colonies), back in Ye Olden Days (roughly between the early 16th century and the early 20th century) it was commonplace for women to pass their last times on to their daughters, and last names would survive (and still do survive) across several generations exclusively through the female line. In fact, last names in general were very chaotic, and full siblings from a single family, sharing both parents, could have completely different last names (as means to pay homage to grandparents, godparents, saints, catholic holidays, etc).
Portuguese FORMER colonies!
@@daviabragaPortugal doesn't have colonies, why should we care about such minor linguistical details
Yeah, back then Spanish last names were also pretty chaotic, people changed them at will, and full brothers could have totally different names.
@@andressigalat602No Brasil, ainda é assim. O céu é o limite para dar nome para filho
I’m Brazilian and never heard of women passing her surname tô the female descendency. It has always been, like in Portugal, the mother surname in the middle and the father as last name. The father’s surname goes through the generations.
I am lithuanian and love the fact you mentioned my country's last name conventions.
Your pronunciation isn't the correct one, but that's is completely fine, since it is extremely hard to pronounce for non-natives. Also, you pronunciated it as every non-lithuanian does, so no worries. Thank you for this entertaining video ❤❤
I am Lithuanian and I am a woman. In my opinion, such a lastname, which Lithuanian women have in general and women married to a Lithuanian, is a SHAME. This is discrimination against women, when a woman's status in society could be determined from her last name. And not so long ago, some 20 years ago, if an unmarried woman gave birth to a child, she and her child were condemned to bullying. And I am happy that more and more women in Lithuania are changing their last names from which their social status cannot be determined.
That modernization has been happening in the US as well. More women are keeping or reclaiming their family names, some are rejecting the patriarchal family name, and many are replacing Miss and Mrs. with Ms or dropping the signifier altogether. I am male, and have never used Mr. except when official form required it [another American oddity?].That was easier for me as I had usually been referred to as Prof. And when I retired I stopped using that. I was told that I would be addressed formally as Herr Professor in German, while Mister Professor would never be use in English, unless my last name were Doctor or Professor.
Strangely, people who know what my profession was continue to use that as an honorific even though I'm retired. Americans continue to refer to public figures in this way, as in Pres. Obama, Sen. Kerry. I wonder how many countries do this and what variations there are. Maybe that will be featured on Name Explain sometime.@@centrifuga8736
@@centrifuga8736 Why are you ashamed of being married? And who is discriminating you based on that? Sounds like you have some weird personal mental problems.
Since it is the most popular Lithuanian comment. I'll still add how to pronaunce it. You pronounced Degutis and Degutienė perfectly. "Y" is just long "i", so De-gu-ti-tė. Thanks for talking about us ❤.
I'm pretty sure that he's mispronouncing everything deliberately to gain more comments.
While Pablo Picasso is best known by his last name, his full name is 25 words long. At his baptism, Picasso was christened Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso.
In Ireland,your surname is actually the name of your ancestor, and the prefixes's Mac/Mc and O/Ó in front of an Irish surname mean son and descendant respectively.
So for example, the surname O'Neill, literally means "descendant of Neill.
The same can be said for the Batak and Nias tribes in North Sumatra, Indonesia.
Might be the same for Johnson or Williamson, etc?
Can confirm as someone with an Irish last name 😂
so mcdonalds is the son of donald?
Just like almost EVERY SINGLE OTHER European language.
Some Hungarian women adopt their husband's name, like if Kovács Júlia married Szabó János, she could be called:
1. Szabóné (wife of Szabó) Kovács Júlia
2. Szabó Jánosné (wife of János) Kovács Júlia
This is similar to the English "Mrs. John Smith", meaning the wife of John Smith, am I right?
That’s very interesting! I’ve never known. Thanks for sharing!
Might be worth to mention that some women would also omit their maiden names entirely, opting to use only their husband's name+né (eg. Szabó Jánosné), although this was mostly only done by older generations
She can also choose a hyphenated version: Szabó-Kovács Júlia. This is a quite new addition to married names and is therefore more common among younger people.
I didn't know this at all. There's a Hungarian composer whose name is Vedres Csaba (or Csaba Vedres), and he was married for many years to a woman called Gyermán Júlia (or Júlia Gyermán). She didn't change her last name.
I once had a Swedish co-worker that when he married, he and his wife combined their last names. His family name was Johansson but I don't recall his wife's former family name. It's like saying you combined Miller and Smith. It was like creating a new last name Smiller.
4:13 Extra trivia: The 2 surnames tradition, it is hinted, it came because one of the old Spanish monarchy lines was cut off because of bad genetics caused by marrying their cousins, and it was about the same time as the Darwin's publications started to take weight on society.
So that way, having 2 surnames allowed people to be more alert for cousin's red flags...
In Russian, there are also patronymic middle names. In high school I studied Russian, and my teacher's name was Sergei Stepanovich Rodionov, that is, Sergei Son of Stepan Rodionov. By the way, Stepanovich was pronouncd Stepanich. His sister's middle name was Stepanovna, Daughter of Stepan, and her last name before marriage was Rodionova.
>>Stepanovich is pronounced Stepanich
It's an informal pronunciation.
@@jarleikkeland like Alexander Alexandrovich is informally... San Sanich.
Russians also love to use that name system with post-soviet people and as a result
Vahagn Garniki Khachaturyan becomes Khachaturyan, Vahagn Garnikovich
We had to learn about this in the "Russian" unit of our high school World Literature class, along with common given names, their diminutives (e.g., Katrina >> Katya), and the patronymics formed from masculine names.
Translating spirit and deeds names makes sense because these names are not just sounds we make when we talk to each other, but they are meant to intrinsically convey some meaningful attribute of the bearer. If I don’t speak Lakota, Tatangka Iyotanke(sp) means little to me until I get to know the person well, or until it is explained to me. If I hear the translated name “Sitting Bull”, as an English speaker, I can much more quickly discern: “This is an individual of great power, who yet restrains himself unless provoked.” So given what appears to be the intended purpose of such a name, translating it is a better way of accomplishing that purpose, as it removes a step in conveying its meaning to the hearer and allows it to make its impact faster.
Always translate names. This is very important.
@@povilzem don't forget Will Smith, the german politician. Or rather, eleven german politicians, one linguist, one ethnologist, one actor, one football trainer and two authors.
Lol, few years ago there was people arguing the opposite on Quora, that it was disrespectfull and the like. Just sharing the irony.
My grandfather’s full name was Fernando Federico Fernando Jose Halla Cruz., born in Oaxaca. He went by Ferd Halla.
Currently, full Spanish naming is only used by politicians in the US by and large. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez went by Sandy Ocasio in High School.
Damn, edit does not work.Fernando Federico Francisco Jose
@@tomhalla426 Dissappointing. A man having the same name twice would've been truly remarkable. 4 names, not so much.
@@tomhalla426 I'm relieved that he didn't have the same name twice.
I am Indian American, and my family is Marathi. The tradition is that the middle names of all the children are the father's name, which only changes for girls when they are married, when they then become their husband's name. So me, my sister, and my mother all had the same middle name, while my dad's middle name was my grandfather's. In school, everyone was always so confused that my middle name was a boy's name.
Edit: Also, something that I always found icky was that during the wedding, the husband can choose to change his wife's name to something else. This has happened to both of my grandmothers and both my maternal aunts (one by blood, the other by marriage). In the case of my uncle's wife, it was because she was born with the same name as his little sister, my mother, and that would have apparently caused too much confusion, since my mom still lived with them when they got married.
My Indian friend had no surname, only given name and caste. When she moved to Europe, they needed a way to register the name, but couldn't summon a surname so they used her father's given name (maybe prompted by the office workers).
So now her full name is a girl's name + a boy's name, and she's often referred to with her last name, which creates funny incidents.
The husband name change thing I can kinda see coming off in bad faith if the pick something stupid.
But most marriage ceremonies still retain the association of the bride as property, to a degree. So it sounds similar to that in a way.
That's why western ceremonies have the father escorting the bride to the groom, he's passing his daughter to her new husband.
A passing of responsibility from one to the other.
I know this sounds like a modern BS interpretation, but the reverent actively narrates this whole affair in some Protestant weddings.😅
@@SugoDiGattoif she is southern then her surname IS the caste name.
@@safebox36lol very true. Same in Indian marriage, and the name change is not arbitrary by husband's choice, he is given a very few options to choose from, its based in astrology.
@@akale2620 no; it's separate from the surname as many can have both caste and surname, it's literally a different text field on her Indian ID.
In Mali, a married woman is always referred as her maiden name in every day life. For example, it would always be Jennifer Lopez. Then French colonisation happened and a married woman in official documents or even on an envelope would be called Mrs. Affleck Jennifer Lopez.
That sounds like the french needed a name that fit their system for their archives. Did this tradition continue after decolonization?
So even the women has Adama Traoré in their names lol?
You missed the best one: In Myanmar (according to a Myanmarese person I met) a person at around 18 gets to pick his or her own last name and can basically pick whatever he or she wants. There’s no relation between a person’s last name and that of his or her parents. (That inevitably raises some questions in some situations in other countries where one is listing one’s parents on some applications.)
I wonder if that's at all related to the Chinese practice of a Courtesy name, Where at 20 I believe people would adopt a new two-syllable name, And it's thenceforth considered disrespectful to call them by their original name in most cases. (Historians evidently don't care about that, though, hence why you'll often find historical works talking about Cao Cao or Yuan Shu instead of Mengde or Gonglu.)
@@rateeightx That’s as good a theory as any. The person who told me about it wasn’t able to elaborate-he just insisted, being asked several times. that, yes, he chose his own surname and could basically pick whatever he wanted.
Don’t Burmese people typically not have surnames?
@@ukassoproductions2490 Seems like a lot of sites online say that. Maybe what this guy meant is that he gets to choose whatever would be considered his surname in places that have them (i.e., most places these days) without regard to any name his parents have. (He definitely was using what people would consider a surname when I met him, which was in Japan.)
Im burmese australian my names myatt soe shwe it has nothing to do with my parents names but some burmese ppl are named after the day of the week theyre born like my friend ye yint, the use of the ye sound means ge was born wednesday afternoon also some names have to do with your culture there are many ethnic groups in Myanmar and there are certin names from each, we dont have last names and about the thing with you get to choose your name isnt really right unless you move somewhere and pick a new name like my dads name is "aung so" but when he moved to Australia it became “Andrew”
I think naming traditions in my country are interesting. In Greece we have family surnames with male and famale versions e.g. Papadopoulos (male) and Papadopoulou (female), but for a weird reason we only use the male version in English. Those surnames' meanings could either refer to an ancestor's job e.g. Fournaris (baker) or an ancestor's father e.g. Giannopoulos (John's son) etc. Mostly kids take only their father's surname and rarely have middle names. Kid's names traditionally MUST be either a grandparent's or a highly revered saint's. Although recently people name their kids with random names. As for wives in the old times they would not only take their husband's surname, but people would give them names that refer to their husband e.g. if a woman's husband was named Costas, she would most likely be called Costena (Costas' wife). Obviously this has changed and ladies keep both their names and surnames since the 80s. As for naming order, in my opinion it is the weirdest part of naming because we either use the western or the eastern version. For example, someone's name in Greek could be written as Markos Antoniou or Antoniou Markos. Its really weird, but I guess this is the case because Greece is culturally in between the Western and Eastern worlds. What do you guys think?
So no Leonidas or Hector?
@@heitorpedrodegodoi5646 what do you mean?
@@Skevatheo There inst someone naming children with ancient greek names.?
@@heitorpedrodegodoi5646 in the past people rarely used ancient names, unless their grandparents had such names. For example, a relative of mine is named Achilles and his grandson is also Achilles, but their name is not so common. Recently though, modern parents use a lot of ancient greek names, sometimes alongside a secondary more common name e.g. a girl's name can be Phaedra (ancient) Mairy (common Christian name). In those cases though, grandparents get pretty upset. In my opinion, if a parent wants to give their kid a name that does not originate from a grandparent, they should perhaps pick a saint's name, rather than an obscure ancient one. A "tama" as the act of naming the kid after a revered saint is called, is always acceptable, even by the most conservative.
Edit: there are quite a few Orthodox Christian saints with ancient names the parents can choose from.
Yeah, english name conventions dont have the female and male separate surname, for example polish immigrants seem to always have male version even if they're female, english language just doesnt have way to differentiate it
In Spain we have name + name(optional)+ surname(mother or father)+surname(mother or father)
And i think the parents can choose which of their own two surnames to choose.
And you die with the same names that you're born.
I particularly like this.
Many Hispanic countries have adopted laws that let parents choose the order of the surnames. However, the overlwhelming majority of people still follows the (actually not so) old custom of paternal-maternal.
La burocracia 😥
I know. I'm proof of that.
What it's referred to as the "western" tradition for names, is the "anglo-saxon" way of forming names... Spain and Portugal are even more to the west in fact 😅
Serbian here:
Marko Petrović, can be understood as Marko Petr-ov-ić
Petrov means 'of Peter' and '-ić' is suffix for 'little one'
So, this is Marko, little one of then Peter. Now, Peter could be his father, or some other more famous male ansestor.
Bulgarians use the same, but drop '-ić', so there would be Marko Petrov.
Also, in Makedonia they might use '-ski', sill meaning similar to '-ian', so Marko Petrovski
In Russia -ich is 90% used in patronymics and only a few of those are surnames. Most common surnames end with -ov or -in.
But the country history is so wide people actually have all kinds of last names, from a banal Ivanov to Rodriguez.
@@AndreiBerezin Russia was not occupied as long as the Balkans. Russian have true last names, and most Balkan ones are just Patronims that stuck after they put it in the census. So name Andrey Petrovich Ivanov meant:
Andrey, child of Peter; while Ivan was some more important ancestor (of just grandfather).
In the United States, by strictly enforced decree, all male babies are named Jason and all female babies are named Ashley.
Not true, but seemed that way in the ‘90s.
In Latin America there are many Jasons and Kimberlys born in the 90's and early 2000's.
Blame the Power Rangers!
Lithuanian here, you actually pronounced them really well except Degutytė (de-goo-ty-te) with emphasis on the "ty." I do want to note that this system is going away a bit in the younger generation, and now a lot of people just choose a gender distinction, like Račkauskas - Račkauskė, that doesn't say anything about marriage
De-goo-TEE-tay more accurately.
Edit to add, I don't see any parents giving their daughters the -ė ending, so whenever I see it it's clear to me that's a married woman's name.
Still, there are a lot more women called Račkauskienė or Račkauskaitė than those with the name Račkauskė (or any other surnames of women without distinction between married or unmattied). Even in younger generations. Actually, the only person I know. having this kind of surname is my doctor. What is true, that all foreign surnames are no more "lithuanized", and marrying a foreign man doesn' t mean that the surname would be in incomprihendible gibberish for all involved. The Lithuanian wife of an imaginary Estonian Meelis Külamees wouldn't be something like Kiulamesienė any more.
Lithuanian surnames usually are too long and unpronounceable. Especially they need to get rid of polonised -(evič)ius.
Ok so my great grandmother came to the US from Lithuania in the 1920s, her, her sister, and their parents all used the last name worksis (as far as I know)
So would that just have been her father's name?
@@dainagrn7030 Yeah, I wish we could go back to the original Lithuanian
7:03 Belarus and Ukraine are not highlighted on the map for Slavic languages. And also, the patronymics for the slavic languages were omited.
you should’ve included ghanaian day names, based on the day of the week you were born + other variables
this is similar to how east africa does it, but it’s not based on the day, but the time. im from kenya and our ‘last names’ (or given names; not sure what to call them) are based on things like the time we were born in a day and other factors too. its different from a family name though
In Polish there are "adjective" last names (like "of something", "von something", "del something" in other languages) but instead of an auxillary word they use a suffix: -ski/-cki/-dzki for men and -ska/-cka/-dzka for women. These names are always gendered.
Now other "noun" last names aren't officialy gendered but they can be in common speech (but in, for example, Czech these names would still be officially gendered).
So if some man's last name is "Kowalski" - his wife's and daugthers' last name would be "Kowalska"
but if his last name would be "Wilk" then all the women in his family officially would also be named "Wilk". However, in common speech his wife could be refferd to "Wilkowa" and his (unmarried) daughter "Wilkówna" (though this naming convention would be considered somehow archaic)
Polish colleague of mine had to go to court here in Canada to get permission to register his daughter with -ska. Since according to Canadian rules baby can have only fathers or mothers last name, or combination, but my collegues wife had different surname, and my collegue ended in ski, so officials were adamant that his daughter has to have -ski. It was really a court case
@@dmitripogosian5084I am so happy living in Belgium where most city council registration offices are familiar with Slavic family name conventions and have no idea assign the correct ending to a child's family name.
@@dmitripogosian5084 When my family immigrated to Canada, my mother and I had our family name automatically switched to "ski" on our immigration documents as we were told that the "ska" ending wasn't recognized as the same as my father's family name. This has frustrated me no end, and causes problems as my birth certificate has me as "ska." I always sign my name as "ska" as a form of rebellion!
@@danutagajewski3330 Exactly, and now in Canada there is a judicial case precedent where it was overruled. So I think one can actually insist on '-ska' now (and puts an effort). The case was in Alberta. I personally also have two different spelling following me, and my wife, who has my last name, has a third version :). But this is not against some fundamental rule, just one letter in the middle. That's a life of immigrants
@@danutagajewski3330 Same problem in Australia in the 80s! My mother and my sister have had no end of trouble since there was no official change of surname registered. And now that Babcia's died (mama's mum), they're having masses of issues dealing with the courts and legal system in Poland who do not recognise them as -cki because they were born -cka, but all their documentation from Australia is -cki.
An interesting naming tradition is the surname "Nguyen," an estimated 40% of Vietnamese people have it, and it basically just means they're from Vietnam.
In Korea, females keep their family names after their marriage.
It's because a spouse was still considered to be part of the family and lineage which they were born from.
So both keep their last name on marriage.
On marrage, husband and wife also needs to form an agreement to decide whose lineage the potential children would follow and submit it to the government. (95% choose to follow the father's)
The decision is final and permanent. (means you can't change it after you're married, you can't fight it in court)
China and Taiwan has similar customs.
In Japan, the wife takes the husband's last name.
Same in Spanish, women never lose their last names, and it's actually illegal to change your last names in Spain.
But apparently in Hong Kong women will sometimes take their husband's surnames, meaning they will have 2 surnames. For example Carry Lam's Chinese name is 林鄭月娥, with 林 (Lam) being her husband's surname, and 鄭 (Cheng) being her birth surname. I thought that was interesting.
@@romanr.301I think keeping 2 surnames is the old Chinese custom. The new Chinese custom is just use the maiden name. Although China has the Hu Kou system that is similar to the lineage in Japan and Korea, but it more flexible and is used to reflect the living address then actual family lineage. For example my mum’s Huo Kou is with my paternal grandmother but my Hu Kuo is with my maternal grandmother because I’m going to school near my maternal grandmother while my mum works near my paternal grandmother.
In Slavic languages, there are a lot more traditions. Gender surnames are one.
But East Slavic languages have patronymics as well. Women in Ukrainian get the second last name after their father's name (yes it has Viking roots).
In Poland, we used to have Last names in Baltic style (showing your marital status), but it faded away in the last century.
He did not even color in Ukraine as Slavic! I was quite surprised.
Lithuania still keeps the tradition, or did they already drop it as well?
how dare you sugest that we dropped our glorius heritage?!@@LukeVilent
@@ignasignas9469Apologies!
Russia also has patronymic middle names and Greece also has gendered surnames.
you ignored that Iceland’s tradition of son and dotter is ancient: it goes back to the Norse people, and was common in Scandinavia and the British Isles due to the Norse invasions. It’s how son is in so many British and Irish names
Not all family names in East Slavic languages change with gender. In essence any family name may fall into a noun (Poroshenko) or an adjective (Zelenskyi) category. As regular adjectives change their endings depending on the gender of the object they're applied to so do adjective family names.
Also you could have mentioned that in Slavic countries people have patronyms (name of the father + a gendered suffix: -vych for men and -vna for women). Since recently you're allowed to take a matronym instead of a patronym in Ukraine by the way.
Name order in Slavic languages is relatively relaxed. The full name consists of 1) family name + 2) given name + 3) patronym but all three are only used together in paperwork and never to refer to somebody you're speaking to. The most formal way to refer to somebody is to use 1) given name + 2) patronym - you'd use this to speak to an elder, to a teacher or to a boss. The less formal order is 1) family name + 2) given name - this is how you speak of yourself when speaking to a teacher, a service person, a police officer etc and when they're speaking to you back. You shouldn't use this order when calling out somebody though as this would sound weird and too paperworky. Even less formal way is 1) given name + 2) family name which is fine to use in most situations not requiring extra honorifics. One other thing though is that you shouldn't refer to somebody by their family name only when speaking to them directly as this is considered somewhat rude when no special context exists (e.g. quoting somebody). On the other hand it is totally acceptable to use just the family name when speaking of an abscent person.
The one thing that turns Greek last names interesting is when the finally lives on a different country and the kid is registered with their naming system. Let's give an example. Some of the last names (not all, not in the same way like Russian last names) are conjugated for female members of the family. So when a girl is born she is given the fathers name conjugated. eg with the most famous Greek name Papadopoulos which turns into Papadopoulou for girls. Another would be Mastakouris to Mastakouri. other names that already end in -ou like in many Greek-Cypriot names (Georgiou) remain the same for boys and girls. But when the kid is born aborad the registry automatically would give the father's name unchanged to the girl.She would then be "Maria Papadopoulos" which for many Greek ears it give a funny effect to introduce a girl with an unconjugated name to the world.
Same happens with Polish descendants in the USA. Usually only the father's male form was maintained, and it was given to both sons and daughters alike. So nowadays you find people like Monica Lewinski, which is a male surname and sounds really odd to Polish speakers. In Poland she would have been Monica Lewinska (well actually spelled Monika Lewińska in local orthography)
@@osasunaitor that happens a lot when people with gendered surnames get to live in countries where the surnames are not gendered.
@@gadeaiglesiassordo716 indeed
I'm from the Appalachian region of the United States and I noticed a long time ago but it's really common for people in Appalachia to have two middle names, or hyphenated names. So like, Mary-Kate, John-Paul, Sarah-Lou, James-Robert or Casey-Lee. I've also noticed that these middle names tend to be after people in the family, and I am also guilty of this naming convention. Myself and both of my kids have double middle names that are after family members. My son has two middle names after both of my grandfathers and my daughter's middle names are after a friend of mine who passed away and her paternal grandfather. I know that some other parts of the world do this but I think it's really interesting how pretty much everyone in Appalachia knows someone who has a really weird family middle name and usually it's doubled. 😂
Nice to know, I also gave my son 2 middle names (Aurelius Frank) until now I had never heard anyone do that .
And some people there do regard their personal names as one unit. A podcaster I sometimes listen to is "Mary Robinette" and not just "Mary", she calls it a "double-barreled name". It's a lot to say when speaking informally, but it's her heritage, and so respect, that she stands up for being Mary Robinette.
That's interesting! I'm not from Appalachia but I am in the US. I actually have two middle names myself, they are not hyphenated.
My 2nd middle name is because my mom didn't change her last name when my parents married and they thought two last names would be two confusing for people. So they gave me a 2nd middle name.
In Argentina married woman used add the husband last name "Maria García de Fernandez" been Fernández the husband last name. But this tradition is no longer been use.
An interesting one you forgot is Southern African names... They can get extremely messy
For example, Nelson Mandela was born Rohlihlahla Mvezo (birth name Rohlihlahla, Mvezo after his birthplace), got the last name Mandela from the tribal authorities after his great-grandfather, has the clan name Madiba after his clan in the Thembu tribe, got the name Nelson from his British teacher and after being circumcised got the ceremonious name Dalibungha
Gotta love when a new name explain video comes out
I think that in slavic languages you forgot the patriarcal middle name for example if a guy named Sergei Romanov had a son named Ivan, the son would be called Ivan sergeeivich Romanov
In some Slavic languages, such as Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Bulgarian, this is the case, Not all Slavic languages have this naming convention. That said, many of common Slavic surnames derive from patronymics.
But does the patronymic name has the same function as the english middle name?
This sometimes occurs in many post-Soviet countries.
@@HappyBeezerStudios no, not really, it is used to address someone politely, like if your teacher's name is Viktor Mikhailovich Sokolov you'd address him as Viktor Mikhailovich
Very cool video. For a part 2 you can touch on the classical Chinese literary name system - (性，名，字，号), and also Vietnamese, where people often have 4 name units, it's "eastern" name order with the family name last, but the name people are called is the last name unit of the given name - so Nguyễn Sinh Cung would be called "Cung".
Also from what I know, us Vietnamese don't really use surname to address each other, or for anything at all. Sure, if a kid is born, his/her name will be [dad's surname] [mom's surname] [middle name(optional)] [their name]
@@hoangtrung21525 mom's surname is optional too.
@@Hilandcaravan I thought about that too, but I've never seen a case like that. I've also never heard of anyone having or changing their mom's surname to be their own surname legally, except for some odd, rural villages, so I think mom's surname doesn't matter.
Anyway all of that classify as middle names, if the kid ever go aboard.
I only recently learned about Thai naming traditions and I find them fascinating.
Balmaceda is pronounced [βalmaˈseða]. Using middle names is very very common in Chile. Using maternal last name is not all that rare, but rather infrequent.
that felt like in spain. the name can have 2 names (both are name in spain as you CAN'T have middle name)
if only that was the only mistake in pronunciation
As a French person of Basque descent, Basque names are starting to become a lot more common, especially among Gen Z babies, but I'm more interested on how older Basques have the manner of writing full names, which are quite similar to Spanish despite, legally I am from France (Pyrenees-Atlantiques). The Basque naming order should start by the given name, followed by the surname of the father and then the mother's surname. For example "Kattalin Ithurralde Arizmendiarreta", in which, her father's surname is Ithurralde and her mother's maiden surname is Arizmendiarreta.
Another fun fact, Basque surnames usually come from the area or the house where the family comes from, and usually they describe the area where the person or family was from. For example, the most common Basque surname "Etxegarai" (usually spelt as Etchegaray in the French custom) is a combination of the words "Etxe" (House) and "Garay" (Upper or Higher), which denotes that the family hails from a house or a homestead located on a high location, such as mountains or hills. Some Basque names even have three or more combinations, making it even more long and confusing, such as Etxemendigarai (The house on the high mountains), Arizmendiarrieta (A holm oak tree on the mountains) and Arroitajauregi (The castle on the mountain pass / gorge)
Some rare surnames have a direct or indirect equivalents to English surnames, such as Eiheregi, which, "eihe" comes from "eihera", meaning Mill, and comes close to the English surname "Miller".
Very interesting, but I wanted to point out that the babies born right now are Gen Alpha, the youngest Genz Z are 13 years old already
Basque names straight up sounds like fantasy name to me
Nik uste bi abizenen ordena espainiatik datorrela eta punto, ez da ezer berezia alde horretatik, eta gero bai toponimia asko daukagula. Nire bigarren abizena Gorostegi da, Acevedo gazteleraz.
Eta euskal hegoaldean Etxeberri (new home/house) da geihengoa Etxegarai baino.
as a french canadian. i'd like to see more people with Basque surnames because im the only one i know lol
@@alexandrebastarache4395
I see. From your surname it appears that you may have some ancestors who are living in the Northern Basque country or Iparralde (or the French Basque Country). Let me define your surname:
Bastarache = French-spelling custom of BASTARRETXE or BAZTERRETXE. "BASTER" means 'corner' or 'boundary' while "ETXE" means house, so your surname actually means "The House along the Corner".
It is most likely your name or ancestry comes from Sare or Sara, a mountainous Basque-speaking town located in traditional Lapurdi province (now the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département, France) near the border of Spain.
In Irish Gaelic names have for example Ó for son descendant of and Mac for son of for makes but females it is is Ní and Nic respectively.
In Poland, some surnames are gendered and some aren't. My surnane is not gendered. But gendered surnames only are this way because of grammar the of Slavic languages.
In Lthuania, there was a problem when the countries joined the Eurozone. There was a project led by Germans, demanding that the word for this currency would be Euro in all languages, and not declined. Problem is that in Lithuanian, this would be the genitive masculine form, Using it as the name of the currency would sound ridiculous. Instead of "it costs 50 euros" the proposed version would sound like "it costed 50 for euro", which is nonsense. In many other languages, the locals complained too, because not using plural with plural numbers might go in German, but not in Finnish or Estonian. The project for this directive was dropped, and 50 euros is still penkiasdešimt eurų,, 51€ penkiasdešimt vienas euras, and 52€ penkiasdešimt du eurai in Lithuanian, as the rather complicated grammar requires.
There was a funny story about a Lithuanian woman living in Finland, and giving birth to a child. She was living as a family with his Finnish man, but they were not officially married. In this case, Finnish law normally assumes that the surname of the child will be same as the surname of his/her mother. But as Finnish authorities did not take into account that it was a form of an unmarried woman's surname, it would sound ridiculous for her son. I don't remember the actual name, but in style "Jonas Jonaitytė".
@@b6983832
In Polish, Euro is a singular nominative-case neuter noun that isn't declined but it could be in theory. It ends in an O and some words like the word radio are declined.
@@modmaker7617in Russian, words like метро, кино, пальто Are Also not declined (metro, kino = cinema, pal'to = manteau)
@@gamermapper
Metro and kino in Polish are 100% fully declined.
I really wanted to hear something about patronymics and matronymics in some countries especially when you talked about Slavic countries. In East Slavic ones the tradition of giving a child a patronymic is still alive, and I think it's much more unique than changing the surname depending on gender (I mean, in Slavic languages we have a lot of things that change their ending depending on the gender). Also in Iceland, for example, there are no last names, but again there are patronymics and even matronymics. Matronyms also exist in Southeast Asia, if I'm not mistaken. In short, it's a very interesting topic and I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't include it. But the video is still informative, thank you for your work.
Maybe it isnt used anymore but the ancient germanic naming tradition is quite interesting. Instead of family names, your name would form with a piece of your fathers name and your mothers name, for example you have a mother named aldegund and a father named eadberht the child would be named eadgund or aldeberht
In Italy people used to use patronymics in the past alongside Personal Names and Surname. They started to gradually fade out in the 19th century and people definitely stopped using them in the '70s. But the particular thing was that the patronymic is different for a dead or an alive father.
If you are Mario Rossi and your father is named Giovanni, you would have been called Mario di Giovanni Rossi if Giovanni was alive and Mario fu Giovanni Rossi is Giovanni was dead. With "di" meaning "of" and "fu" meaning "was".
And to this day even if the western naming order is the most prevalent, in Italy that is hardly fixed and the eastern naming order is often used, especially in writing and formal situations.
So all the historical figures had "fu" in their names? Like everyone will end up with that so what was the practical point i wonder
@@cherry.poison. It was inconsistent in the past. Historical figures are Almost never called by patronymics, usually by name alone or by name and surname.
But the small amount of times that we refer someone dead with the patronymic it's usually with "di".
But the main thing here is that patronymics were older than Surnames for commoners and so this practice was an ulterior difference between two people who could have had the same name.
And now because nobody in Italy uses passoto remoto they'd all be è stato/a.
common practice in England, generations ago, it was typical of working class people to have their occupation as their last name:
Brewer = beer maker
Farmer = Farmer
Smith = blacksmith
Walker = wool maker
Mason = stonemason
etc....many more like carter, cooper shepherd, miller, taylor, clark, archer, porter....the list goes on
This practice should return!
Runner: Delivery person
Codesmith: Coder
Drinkmaker: Barista
That is a very common germanic naming system. Most family names are inherited either from the profession of an ancestor or the name of an ancestor, sometimes also the location someone came from or a physical attribute.
Johnson is just the son of John,
Very common in Greece too. So we have surnames like Milonas (Miller), Koskinas (Sieve maker), Karras (Cart maker), Varelas (Barrel maker) etc.
I'd love a sequel to this topic with other nations too! Really interesting!
Legally, Indonesians do not have last names. Although there are some ethnic groups who have the tradition of last names.
I feel like this is unusual enough that it belongs in the video.
A little correction regarding a name: in the case of Pedro Pascal, the last name of "Balmaceda" should sound "BalmaSeda" instead of "BalmaKeda".
That works for latinamerican accent, for spanish accent should go "BalmaTHeda" 😁👍
The majority of Indonesian have no last name at all. In fact, we don't have any system at all. Someone's name may consist of one word, two words, three words or even more, but mostly two. So it's really common to see a family whose each member has totally different name...
Some ethnicities like Batak people however use last name to denote their clan name.
A lot of ethnic groups outside Java have clan names not only Batak. It's just the people in Java who have different systems. In Java family name only reserve for royalty and their descendant (regardless of their current status being an actual royalty or just regular people).
@@giraffestreet well, since literally half of Indonesian live in Java, it's safe to say that the majority of Indonesian have no last name nor clan name...
@@giraffestreet "it's just the people in Java..." not really. I got a lot of friends from outside Java and they don't have any clan name except Batak people... I know some other ethnic groups have clan name as well like Dayak, Ambon, and maybe many Papuan, but it doesn't mean it's just the people in Java
@@muistichOrion Sumatran ethnic group like Minangkabau, Nias, Lampung, Sulawesi ethnic group like Minahasa, Gorontalo. You probably heard some of it without knowing that it's actually a clan/family name.
@@muistichOrion also didn't say "majority" (number of people regardless of ethnic group) I said "a lot of ethnic group outside Java" (number of ethnic group, but not the people itself).
So in that sense you're right that "majority" of people in Indonesia don't have clan name, because most likely they're part of the majority ethnic group.
But that's not what I meant in my original reply. "A lot of ethnic group in Indonesia outside Java do have clan name. In Java, the Javanese and Sundanese don't have clan name. But outside Java, Batak, Minangkabau, Lampung, Nias, Minahasa, Gorontalo, and you also mention Dayak and Ambon has clan name
In conclusion in Java there are fewer ethnic groups who has clan name than outside Java. Unless if you want to count Chinese, Arab descendants, or people who migrated from outside Java.
The notion of "middle names" makes very little sense in Brazil. Here there's much more emphasis on given x family names.
Sure, I was trying to find out which of my names was my "middle name", since i have always thought of it as my 1st and 2nd name, the same goes for family names, 1st and 2nd family name
In the northern part of Germany, in Lower German, there is the possiblity, that an "Eva Müller" could be called "Müllers Eva", as she is the property of the family, or even just the "Müllersche" the person from that family. At least my grandmother sometimes used this method.
That sounds like the way rural people talk about people. "Do you know Eva?" "Which one?" "The Muller's Eva. She's the daughter of Hans the Millman."
+1 my late granny referred to her friends always in this way (she: born 1912 )
we use this sometimes too! (I'm Finnish)
@@Altrantis
It may be, that that is the real reason. I don't know.
Not just northern Germany. I'm originally from Saxony and it's rather common here, too. Not in official documents, but in colloquial language.
One anecdote here: a bit west of Leipzig is a village called Braunsbedra. When I was young I've always understood Brauns Petra (Petra Braun) bcs that naming usage was so common where I grew up. I was wondering why my parents kept mentioning that woman and why she never visited xD. That is, until I learned that my mom occasionally had to go there for work-related reasons and that it's not a person's name but a village.
Japanese names get their meaning from the kanji (chinese characters used in Japanese) used rather than how they are pronounced, so the same name when spoken (or written phonetically) can often be writen using different kanji and therefore with different meanings. Often these different meaning are around a common theme but sometimes they are totally different.
Not to mention that they need furigana (hiragana written above or on the right side from the kanji, depending on if it's in horizontal or vertical style). Because there are names that could have lot of possible options to how to read, of course the very common names usually not need that if it supposed to be read on the commonly known way.
yeah... we've all seen Death Note lol
Can you speak and read japanese fluently? 🤔🙄
@@Agent-ie3uv fluent is loaded term, I'm not native level by any means but I'm not an absolute beginner either. Why do you ask?
some parent even feeling fancy enough to use kanji character but with uncommon pronunciation to make a western sounding name lol
You forgot to mention that while in Portuguese the father name comes last, and in Spanish it comes second to last, in both cases they are the "main" surnames, and the ones that get passed down to their childs.
As somebody who is half Lithuanian and half Mexican, I've had to deal with both naming conventions frequently
Oh, that is interesting, so if your father is mexican whith a last name Ramirez then your last name would be Ramirezyté?
in 2010 I met the only Mexican man in Lithuania (so he said). He owned a Mexican restaurant in Vilnius!
As someone with three given names and no surname, I think Bangladesh might be the only place where all of the naming traditions mentioned exist simultaneously yet there is no hard and fast tradition when it comes to names.
In Myanmar, people don't have last names and only have a given name.
Some people do have their father's or mother's names in their names but that bit wont be acknowledge as a last/family name, both culturally and officially.
But since most apps and websites follow the western naming order, we have do chop up our given names in half. The latter half ends up becoming the " surname ".
Recently in some Spanish speaking countries parents can choose the order of their children last names
Dutch (and Flemish) surnames 'suffer' from a lot of prefixes, like 'van', 'de', 'van der', "in 't" and much more. These are often not counted in sorting. So there is a big problem when using, mostly US based, software.
As a student, when consulting scientific literature references, some indexed the surnames with just 9 characters. For authors with a 'van der' prefix, that left only 3 characters, leaving little to distinguish them.
9:04 the icelandic way of naming is actually just the old norse way here in scandinavia you can still se it like one of my last names is jakobsen (in denmark we use sen instead of son) and in sweden it was jsut stopped a few decades ago
In the Irish language (and probably Scottish Gaelic and Manx?), naming is similar in practice to Lithuania (in that the husband has one last name, the wife has a related but slightly different last name and the daughters have yet another slightly modified version of the last name--the sons have the same last name as the father). If the father's last name is Ó Murchú (Murphy in English), his wife has the last name of Uí Mhurchú, and his daughters would have the last name of Ní Mhurchú. If the father's last name is Mac Mathúna, his wife has the last name Mhic Mhathúna and his daughters have the last name Nic Mhathúna.
About Slavic names: many Slavic people's use patronymics, formed similarly to Icelandic last names, as middle names. So for example, Volodymyr Zelenskyy's full name is "Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy", his father's name being "Oleksandr". Similar practice, although not officially enforced, is still fairly common in Finland as well.
His father definitely referred to himself as Alexandr because Russian was and is the predominant language in Middle and Eastern Ukraine (now Russia), no matter what yall think of it.
They do that in Russia as well.
Vladimir Putin's full name is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. His father's name being Vladimir.
Question: how would that be in Finnish, now that you mention it?
@@LillaIgelkotten for example, my farther's name is Kari, so one of my names is "Karinpoika". Meanwhile if I had a sister, she would be "Karintytär". But again, this is just a practice that some people choose to follow, it's not enforced in any way. I'd say it's getting more rare as time goes by
in fact in Spain people usually remember Up to 8 surnames four from the father anf four from the mother for example: Luis(name) Vázquez García Rodríguez del cerro luceron Santamaría perez valle
really interesting. I didn't know that about lithuanian naming customs.
Name systems are really fascinating topic and one can definitely not done all but make categories about them. There are just too many idiosyncracy.
Here on Orchid island the native people of Dao/Yami change their names to "(grand) parent of someone" when a new generation is born.
Filipinos used the Spanish naming system too before. For example Apolinario Mabini y Maranan but we switched to Portuguese naming system so it would be written as "Apolinario Maranan Mabini". It's a bit confusing but older documents show the Spanish system.
And no one gets called by any of their legal names 97% of the time anyway.
For Jose Rizal: Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda
Even the current one, if a woman married her husband, she use the last name of the husband, as an addition:
Sarah Geronimo Gudicelli for example.
Also, mothers can also either retain their last name as they were at the stage of adolescence or use the same name as their husband/s.
A cool idea for a naming tradition I had was portmanteaus - making a portmanteau of one's parents last names.
The philippines have mixed the american and spanish naming custom.
Ex. Double Barrel Name + Mother's Last name + Father's Last name = Filipino Naming Custom
And used to have longer during the Spanish period, for example:
Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda.
It looks like the Portuguese order, but we treat the mother’s last name as a middle name.
Our mother's maiden name is our middle name.
@@hakusilver5207
Ah. I got it.
In Poland surnames can end in ski/ska.
Ski for male and ska for female.
Mongolian naming practices are super interesting! Their last names aren’t really used much except in legal documents. Some use patronymics, and some use clan names, and some use both. At least, that’s how I understand it! It’s complicated. :)
mongol here ^^ yes we use patronymics, rather than surnames. although sometimes a child will take on a matronymic instead, and i've even heard of kids who take on the name of one of their grandparents. we do technically have last names (our clan names), but like you say, we only have them on legal documents, and most people don't bother to remember it, so it has no importance in daily life. and even our patronymics aren't too important in daily life either, we typically just use the initial letter of the patronymic before the given name if it's needed to clear up confusion. sometimes we'll also add the suffix -iin to the patronymic, although this isn't a rule
also, we have some interesting things about our given names :) a given name is usually (not always) two words combined together, with more feminine words like flower or jewel for girls, and masculine words like metal or strength for boys. so a normal girl name could be altantsetseg (golden + flower), and a boy name could be batbaatar (strong + hero).
im so happy to see people take interest in mongolian names~ ❤️
Researching my Norwegian ancestors I found that some used the farm name also. Rosevold or Aspens are last names used by my family
4:08. The OCD part of me wants to paint Mexico's Baja California red... 😅
In Meghalaya, India, the tribes there actualy take their mothers' surname (Basicaly a clan name) as their last names.
in Balmaceda the c is pronounced like an s, the only time the k sound appears in Spanish is through "qu" followed by a vowel, using an actual k in writing is rare
And thats pretty stupid btw
K is definitely an easier way to write than qu
@@AndreiBerezin and why are you telling me as if I made the Spanish language French and portugese does the same, it's just a feature of Latin Languages buddy
@@MustyHam i know that, and for years I've been wondering when they will drop that shit and just go with K instead.
Whats the point of writing quesquecest or what ever the fcck they do in French if you could just put keskese as it reads exactly that?
@@AndreiBerezin well the k looks chonky and quite brute, what don't you drop it in favor of Qu and c?
@@AndreiBerezin Languages don't work by phonetics alone (least of all english) and etymological tradition plays a big role, that said a lot spanish speakers write stuff like "Ola ke ase?" in casual conversations
In Ethiopia and Eritrea we use our father's name and grandfather's name as middle and last name. We can use that to count the generations, i can count to 6 generations and my friends can count to 10 generations.
My middle name is Cotlin from my grandmother's side of the family who came from from Britain in the 1890s I think. From the little information I have about the name, it's incredibly rare as an actual last name in the US now with only a few living people who have it. There's barely information on the history of it in any publicly available material online.
In Russian, you can call someone by their given name and patronym even though they also have a surname.
Arabic names can allow you to include your father's name, you child's name and the town you're from.
I'm not sure yet how Finnish names interact with marriage.
Korean names can include where you're from as well.
@@maxgovorukhin5039
My impression is it depends. On what? Way too much. Such as who's notable.
Lithuanian maiden surnames have diminuitive endings: -yte, -iute, -aite. If you meet lithuanian woman with this ending it means that she isn't married.
Great video!
Lithuanian here, you pronounced Degutis 'de-goo-tis' correctly, and Degutienė, as best as I can transcribe to english sounds is 'de-goo-tee-yeah-neigh' and Degutytė is 'de-goo-tee-tay'
Sri Lankan Sinhala names also take this to a completely other level... They use the Portugese system of naming - but each name is insanely long in it's own right and can be itself a compound of multiple names, and the names chosen can seem extremely random (such as the cricket player Mahamarakkalla Kurulusuriya Patabanabendige Akila Dananjaya Perera taking the everyday names of Akila Dananjaya)
I'm Mexican (actually from Baja California which you for some reason didn't highlight in your map of Spanish speaking nations?) And my name is, of course, Hispanic, though I use my second name as a middle name. Unlike many people, however, I don't cut out my mother's last name in English since I'm much closer to her than my estranged father. I've actually been thinking about removing his last name entirely and adding on my maternal grandfather's second last name.
In Quebec, it was very popular for kids in the 80s and 90s to get double-barrelled name. By the mid-late 2010s, some of these kids were having kids of their own, and it was then that people noticed that the naming law was not ready to manage how to compose a name out of two already double-barrelled names. They actually had to change the law (or publish an official decision on how to apply the existing law, I'm not too clear) and the decision was that people can either take a single name amongst the four, one of the two barrelled pairs, or a combination of one name from each parent in any order so the child of John A-B and Mary C-D could for example just as well be be Francis D-A.
The Philippines: Have at least 5 legal names, possibly pick up more. We are not calling you any of them.
The "Eastern" naming convention was carried over into a sci-fi franchise: In the Star Trek universe, Bajorans are depicted as having family names and given names and in the "Eastern" order, so one of Deep Space Nine's main characters is known as Major (later Col.) Kira Nerys, with very few people calling her "Nerys" except in casual or intimate settings; she is otherwise referred to Maj. Kira, Col. Kira, or just Kira.
This was introduced in the TNG episode "Ensign Ro", where Captain Picard learns this from Ro Laren, who had theretofore been called "Ensign Laren" an had a discipline problem based on the Federation gaslighting Bajoran naming conventions. (The earring's religious connotations were also addressed in this episode.)
Japanese names can confuse me so much as a Hungarian who consumes a lot of English media because they almost never flip their names in Hungarian. I know some Japanese, so that helps, but it's still hard to guess, as some given names sound like family names and I don't know all of the Japanese family names😭
In China, some families prefer a 2 or more characters given name, with one character as a generation character, all boys in the same generation use that character. For example, the decendants of Confucius has such rules (using at least 500 years ago, they are still using now, with update of character list for coming generation)
Some family use such naming method for boys and girls, with different generation character.
This was really cool
The last name should always be a practical way to identify ancestry. I kind of like the two name system.
Agreed
the origin of the spanish double last names is exactly that, to identify ancestry. it originated from the nobles, which would display their names in a long list to show their lineage. officialy we have 2 but in practice you have as many last names as you can remember.
Maybe that's not what they intend. Names for a lot of people is about individuality. You can never confuse someone for another. Everyone is their own person.
I would love it more if one represents maternal last name (pass down from mothers to daughters for generations) and one represents paternal last name.
I don't think an infinite amount of last names would be good for anyone's jaw, so I think bare minimum good records should be taken so that people know which families both parents came from.
Mothers changing their last names makes this harder.
although i was born in Canada my mother is Brazilian so me and my sibling both have two last names. and also never really realized people in spanish speaking countries also have two last names or that there was an order to two last names it never really came to mind
The order in which the suffixes of the women married are formed in Lithuania has now slightly changed. As of recently, married women are able to shorten their suffixes from -ienė to -ė(for example, Degutienė can be changed to Degutė). There's actually even a proposal in the Lithuanian parliament to let women like these have an -a suffix in their last names. So, in this case, a surname like, say, Ragauskienė, would be allowed to be converted into Ragauska. However, the proposal is still only in the discussion process.