SURNAME • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Surname

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/sˈərnˌeɪm/ Listen

noun

Surname n.

A name or appellation which is added to, or over and above, the baptismal or Christian name, and becomes a family name. Note: Surnames originally designated occupation, estate, place of residence, or some particular thing or event that related to the person; thus, Edmund Ironsides; Robert Smith, or the smith; William Turner. Surnames are often also patronymics; as, John Johnson.

An appellation added to the original name; an agnomen. "My surname, Coriolanus." Note: This word has been sometimes written sirname, as if it signified sire-name, or the name derived from one's father.

verb

Surname v. t. (past & past part. surnamed; pres. part. surnaming) To name or call by an appellation added to the original name; to give a surname to. "Another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel." "And Simon he surnamed Peter."

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Etymology of 'Surname'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Surname" Quotes from Famous Books

... Japanese cannot state with any certainty from what gods they are descended, all of them have tribal names (kabane) which were originally bestowed by the Mikado, and those who make it their province to study genealogies can tell from a man's ordinary surname who his remotest ancestor must have been. From the fact of the divine descent of the Japanese people proceeds their immeasurable superiority to the natives of other countries in courage ...

— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... a new prefix would have to be invented, which they would retain if the union were dissolved. Mrs would be the distinguishing prefix of women who had entered on the final and permanent state of matrimony. Whether the wife would take the husband's surname during the probationary term would be another question for decision by the majority; I should incline to her retaining her maiden name with the aforesaid prefix, and only assuming that of the husband with the Mrs of finality. But these are ...

— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... Cassius] Thus hauing brought vnder a part of Britaine, and hauing made his abode therin not past a sixtene daies, he departed and came backe againe to Rome with victorie in the sixt month after his setting [Sidenote: Suetonius] foorth from thence, giuing after his returne, to his sonne, the surname of Britannicus. This warre he finished in maner as before is said, in the fourth yeere of his reigne, which fell in the yeere of the world 4011, after the birth of our Sauiour 44, and after the ...

— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed

... hold of "John Donne" by the skirt, and "Thomas Creech," at whom he made a full pause, informing his Italians that "his poems are reputed by his nation as 'assai buone.'" He has also "Le opere di Guglielmo;" but to this Christian name, as it would appear, he had not ventured to add the surname. At length, in his progress of inquiry, in his fourth volume (for they were published at different periods), he suddenly discovers a host of English poets—in Waller, Duke of Buckingham, Lord Roscommon, and others, among whom is Dr. Swift; but he acknowledges their works have not reached him. Shakspeare ...

— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... after his words, the moral Clytemnestra of her husband. Such a surname is severe: but the repugnance we feel to condemning a woman cannot prevent our listening to the voice of justice, which tells us that the comparison is still in favour of the guilty one of antiquity; for she, driven to crime by fierce passion overpowering reason, at ...

— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

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