This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2011)

A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage. Patronymics are still in use in many places world wide, although their use has largely been replaced by family names.

History[link]

In many areas around the world, patronyms predate the use of family names. Family names in many Celtic, English, Iberian, Scandinavian and Slavic surnames originate from patronyms, e.g. Wilson (son of William), Powell (from "ap Hywel"), Fernández (son of Fernando), Rodríguez (son of Rodrigo), Carlsson (son of Carl), Petrov (of Peter), Stefanović (son of Stefan, little Stefan) and O'Connor (from "Ó Conchobhair", meaning grandson/descendant of Conchobhar). Other cultures which formerly used patronyms have switched to the more widespread style of passing the father's last name to the children (and wife) as their own.

Patronymics are still commonly used as middle names in Russia. In Iceland family names are unusual; Icelandic law favours the use of patronyms (or more recently, matronyms) over family names.

In biological taxonomy, a patronym is the second part of a binomial name which is derived from a Latinized surname. These often honor associates of the biologist who named the organism rather than the biologist himself. Examples include Gopherus agassizii, named by James Graham Cooper after Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, and Acacia greggii, named by botanist Asa Gray after explorer Josiah Gregg.

Historical and current use[link]

Western Europe[link]

In Western Europe patronyms were formerly widespread but later became confined to Scandinavia.

Nordic countries[link]

In Norse custom patronyms and matronyms were formed by using the ending -son (later -søn and -sen in Danish and Norwegian) to indicate "son of", and -dóttir (Icelandic -dóttir, Swedish and Norwegian -dotter, Danish and Norwegian -datter) for "daughter of". This name was generally used as a last name although a third name, a so-called byname based on location or personal characteristic was often added to differentiate people and could eventually develop into a kind of family name. Some Early Modern examples of the latter practice, where the patronymic was placed after the given name and was followed by the surname, are Norwegian Peder Claussøn Friis, the son of Nicolas Thorolfsen Friis (Claus in Claussøn being short for Nicolas) and Danish Thomas Hansen Kingo, the son of Hans Thomsen Kingo. Eventually, most Nordic countries replaced or complemented this system with the prevailing "international" standard of inherited family names. In Norway, for example, the parliament passed a family name act in 1923, citing the rising population and the need to avoid the confusion of new last names in every generation. The law does allow a person to retain a patronymic as a middle name in addition to the surname, as was common in Early Modern times; this is not a common practice, but does occur, a modern example being Audhild Gregoriusdotter Rotevatn). The Danish government outlawed the practice in 1856 and eased the regulations in 1904 to deal with the limited amount of patronymics. In Sweden the practice of children keeping their father's and wives keeping their husband's patronymic as a surname occurs in the 1700s but is first prevalent in the late 1800s, still present yet uncommonly in the 1900s and finally abolished in 1966.

Matronyms were used exceptionally if the child was born out of wedlock or if the mother was much more high-born or well known than the father, a historical example being Sweyn Estridsson.

In Iceland, patronymics are still used as last names and this is in fact compulsory by law, with a handful of exceptions.^[1]

In Finland, the use of patronyms instead of family names was very common well into the 19th century. Patronymics were composed similarly as in Swedish language or other Scandinavian languages: the father's name and the suffix -n for genitive plus the word poika for sons, tytär for daughters. For example Tuomas Abrahaminpoika (to be read in English as "Tuomas, Abraham's son") and Martta Heikintytär (to be read in English as "Martta, Heikki's daughter").

Netherlands[link]

In Dutch, patronymics were often used in place of family names or as middle names. Patronymics were composed of the father's name plus an ending -zoon for sons, -dochter for daughters. For instance, Abel Janszoon Tasman is "Abel son of Jan Tasman", and Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer: "Kenau, daughter of Simon Hasselaer". In written form, these endings were often abbreviated as -sz. and -dr. respectively e.g. Jeroen Cornelisz. "Jeroen son of Cornelis", or Dirck Jacobsz. The endings -s, -se and -sen were also commonly used for sons and often for daughters too. In the northern provinces, -s, as genitive case, was almost universally used for both sons and daughters. Patronymics were common in the Dutch United Provinces until the French invasion in 1795 and subsequent annexation in 1810. As the Netherlands were now a province of France, a registry of births, deaths and marriages was established in 1811, whereupon emperor Napoleon forced the Dutch to register and adopt a distinct surname.^[2] Often, they simply made the patronymics the new family names, and modern Dutch patronymic-based surnames such as Jansen, Pietersen and Willemsen abound. Others chose their profession or habitat as family names: Bakker (baker), Slachter (butcher), van Dijk (of dike) etc.

England[link]

In England, names ending with the suffix "son" were often originally patronymic. In addition, the archaic French (more specifically, Norman) prefix fitz (cognate with the modern French fils, meaning "son"), appears in England's aristocratic family lines dating from the Norman Conquest, and also among the Anglo-Irish. Thus there are names such as Fitzgerald and Fitzhugh. Of particular interest is the name Fitzroy, meaning "son of king", which was used by illegitimate royal children who were acknowledged as such by their fathers.^[3]

Ireland, Scotland and Wales[link]

For Ireland,

The use of "Mac" in some form was prevalent in Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Manx, in all of which it denotes "son". "Mc" is also a frequent anglicisation in both Scotland and Ireland. In Ireland, the forms "Mag" and "M'" are encountered. The prefix "Mac" is used to form a patronym, such as "Mac Coinnich" – or the anglicized 'Mackenzie' – son of Coinneach/Kenneth. Less well known is the female equivalent of Mac, Nic, condensed from nighean mhic (in Scottish Gaelic) or iníon mhic (in Irish), both meaning daughter. For example, the Scottish Gaelic surname, Nic Dhòmhnaill meaning 'daughter of a son of Dòmhnall' (in English, Donald), as in Mairi Nic Dhòmhnaill, or Mary MacDonald. In Ireland, the use of Ó (and its feminine equivalent Ní, from iníon uí), anglicised "O'" and meaning 'grandson' predominated over "Mc"^{[citation needed]}.

At the north end of the Irish Sea, in Ulster, the Isle of Man and Galloway (indeed as far north as Argyll), "Mac" was frequently truncated in speech, leading to such anglicisations as "Qualtrough" (Son of Walter) & "Quayle" (son of Paul, cf. MacPhail) – usually beginning with "C", "K" or "Q". In Ireland, this truncation resulted in surnames such as "Guinness" (son of Aonghus, cf. MacAonghusa) beginning usually in "C" or "G" for patronymics prefixed with Mac, and in "H" (e.g. "Hurley" (descendant of Jarlath, cf. Ua hIarfhlatha/O'Hurley)) for surnames prefixed with "O". Colloquial Scottish Gaelic also has other patronymics of a slightly different form for individuals, still in use (for more information please see: Scottish Gaelic personal naming system). An interesting crossover variation in the use of "Ó" for grandson in Irish (anglicised as "O'") and "Ap" for son in Welsh, was that the West Waleian name Ho-well was derived from Uí Mhell of old Irish, which then became O'Well, then Howell in their Welsh relatives. Thus Ap Howell means 'the son of the grandson of Mell'.^{[citation needed]}

In Wales, before the 1536 Act of Union all Welsh people used patronyms and matronym as the sole way of naming people. Welsh, as a P-Celtic language, used "Map" (Modern Welsh "Mab") in contrast to the Q-Celtic Scottish "Mac". Rhydderch ap Watcyn was Rhydderch son of Watcyn. Daughters were indicated by verch (from merch, meaning 'girl, daughter'), as in Angharad Verch Owain or 'Angharad, daughter of Owain'. This gave rise to names such as ap Hywel being — after the Acts of Union — used as Anglicised surnames; in this case the name ap Hywel became the surnames Howell/Powell. There are many such Anglicised surnames, such as Bowen from ab Owen, Protheroe from ap Rhydderch, and Pulliam from ap William. Up until the Industrial Revolution the use of patronyms was still widespread, especially in the west and north of Wales. A revival of patronyms during the 20th century continues today: for example, Ifan ab Owen Edwards, the academic, writer and film-maker, was the son of Sir Owen Morgan Edwards.

France[link]

In France, the terms patronyme and nom patronymique had long been used interchangeably to designate the family name, meaning that it is inherited from the father. This usage is contrary to the international meaning as described in the rest of this article, and a law enacted in 2002 mandated not using these terms for nom de famille (lit. "name of family"), although "patronyme" was removed from most administrative documents decades before 2002.^[4]

The tradition of patronymic lineage is still used among some Canadian descendants of French colonists: in the oral tradition of many Acadians, for example, Marc à Pierre à Gérard (lit. "Marc of Pierre of Gérard"), means "Marc, son of Pierre, grandson of Gérard".

Iberian Peninsula[link]

In Portugal, there are some common surnames which had a patronymic genesis, but are no longer used in such way. For instance, Álvares was the son of Álvaro and Gonçalves was the son of Gonçalo (it was the case of Nuno Álvares Pereira, son of Álvaro Gonçalves Pereira, son of Gonçalo Pereira). Other cases include Rodrigues (Rodrigo) and Nunes (Nuno). In the same way the surname Soares means son of Soeiro (in Latin Suarius). It comes from Latin Suarici (son of Suarius); the Latin genitive suffix -icius/a was used to indicate a patronymic. After it became Suariz, Suarez and eventually Soares. Another theory attributes the Iberian -ez style patronymics to Germanic (Visigothic) rather than Latin influence.

Spanish patronyms follow a similar pattern to the Portuguese (e.g., López: of Lope; Hernández: of Hernán; Álvarez: of Álvaro). Common endings include -ez, -az, -is, and -oz. (Note: Not all names with similar endings are necessarily patronymic, i.e. Ramas, Vargas, Morales.)

In the past, both in Spanish and Portuguese as well as Catalan, the endings -ez, -es, -iz, -is tended to be conflated since pronunciation was quite similar in the three languages. Nowadays, Portuguese has been fully standardized to -es and Catalan to -is; Spanish is also standardized to -ez, but it is very common to see archaic endings in -es. For instance, Pires, Pérez and Peris are the modern forms of "Peterson" in Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan.

Eastern Europe[link]

Serbian[link]

Vuk Karadžić reported that in Serbia there were no last names "until our times", i.e. until the nineteenth century, and that patronymics were used in the traditional way.

Russian[link]

In East Slavic languages, the ending -ovich, -yevich, -yich is used to form patronymics for men. For example, in Russian, a man named Ivan with a father named Nikolay would be known as Ivan Nikolayevich or 'Ivan, son of Nikolay' (Nikolayevich being a patronymic). For women, the ending is -yevna, -ovna or -ichna. For masculine names ending in a vowel, such as Ilya or Foma, when they are used as a base for patronymic, the corresponding endings are -ich (for men) and -inichna (for women).

In Russia, the patronymic is an official part of the name, used in all official documents, and when addressing somebody both formally and among friends. A Russian will rarely formally address a person named Mikhail simply as 'Mikhail', but rather as 'Mikhail' followed by his patronymic (i.e. 'Mikhail Nikolayevich' or 'Mikhail Sergeyevich' etc.).^{[citation needed]} However, on informal occasions when a person is called by a diminutive (such as Misha for Mikhail resp. Nastya for Anastasia), the patronymic is rarely used. In colloquial, informal speech, it is also possible to contract the ending of a patronymic: thus Nikolayevich becomes Nikolaich, and Stepan Ivanovich becomes Stepan Ivanych or simply Ivanych as the given name may be omitted altogether. In this case the contraction, if possible, is obligatory: Ivan Sergeyevich Sidorov may be called 'Sergeich' or, more rarely, 'Sergeyevich', though such contractions are sometimes avoided as they tend to bring a shade of muzhik-style familiarity. Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (Александр Александрович) may be called San Sanych (Сан Саныч) and Pavel Pavlovich (Павел Павлович) may be called Pal Palych (Пал Палыч). A famous example of a contracted female patronymic is 'Mar' Ivanna' (Марьванна), short for 'Maria Ivanovna' (Мария Ивановна), a young female teacher who is a recurring character in Vovochka jokes. In contrast to male names, if a woman is called by her patronymic name without a given name, the patronymic is never contracted: 'Ivanovna' but 'Mar' Ivanna'. Male and female patronymic names derived from names ending in -slav (Vladislav, Yaroslav) have two possible forms: long, with -vovich/-vovna (Yaroslavovich, Yaroslavovna) and short, with -vich, -vna (Yaroslavich, Yaroslavna).

Ukrainian[link]

In Ukrainian, the female patronymic always ends with -івна (-ivna) or -ївна (-yivna).^[5] The male patronymic always ends with -ович (-ovych).^[5]