Personal names

A personal name consists of a given name or names, any family, group names (such as tribal or clan names), or other surname-like elements used in the culture from which the name comes, and whatever titles and other name qualifiers are associated with the name bearer. A full personal name refers to an individual and might encode information that indicates social class, religious and political backgrounds, educational levels, ethnic or cultural backgrounds, and regional provenance.

Global Name Management personal name model

To discuss and work with personal names, regardless of their native format, it is important to use consistent terminology. It is also vital to be able to consistently parse names into their constituent parts, so that the equivalent parts can be compared.

The shape of the Global Name Management personal name model is motivated by the necessity to deal with names as they are encoded in real-world data sets. It is a practical approach to determining structure in a name. For example, even though names in many parts of the world do not have true surnames in the Western sense, these names are nevertheless forced into databases that assume surnames. Therefore, for the purposes of consistent name processing, Global Name Management imposes a two-field structure. Which separate the various parts of a name belong to is determined in part by how frequently each name part has been associated with a given name or surname. Within each field individual name elements are parsed into larger units. The surname “de la Salle,” for example, is recognized as one name phrase made up of a main name stem and two prefixes, not as three separate name parts.

Figure 1. Global Name Management personal name model
Global Name Management personal name model

Structure and components of personal names

Personal names can contain many different components. These components and the way they are structured differ across cultural groups.

Here are some of the components that can be used in personal names:

  • Given name
  • Surname
  • Family name
  • Tribal, clan, or caste name
  • Relationship or lineage markers (such as patryonymic (names derived from a father's name), matronymic (names derived from a mother's name), teknonymic (names derived from a child's name), and generational markers)
  • Qualifiers that indicate birth order, gender, religion, or religious affiliation
  • Titles
  • Particles (such as "bin" (son) and "al" (the) in Arabic or "de" (of/from) in Spanish and French)

The structure of personal names, or the order of the name components, also varies from one country or cultural group to another.

Here are some examples of name structures:

Given Name(s) + Family Name
  • Megan Marie Andrews (European)
  • Fereshteh Gholamzadeh (Iranian)
  • Rattima Nitisaroj (Thai)
  • Hasan Incirlioglu (Turkish)
Family Name + Given Name
  • Lim Yauw Tjin (Chinese)
  • Pak Mi-Ok (Korean)
  • Suzuki Ichiro (Japanese)
Family Name + Middle Name + Given Name
  • Trinh Van Thanh (Vietnamese)
Given Name + Father's Given Name
  • Ahmed bin Eisa (some Arab communities)
  • Abdurrahman Wahid (Indonesia)
  • Mahmud bin Haji Basir (Malaysia)
Given Name + Patronymic Name (Father's Name) + Family Name
  • Ivan Andreyevich Saratov (Russia)
  • Basimah Ali Al-Qallaf (some Arab countries)
Tribal Name + Religious Name
  • WOUKO Philomene (Cameroon)
Given Name Only
  • Sukarno (Indonesia)
  • Habibullah (Afghanistan)
Reference to Offspring's Name
  • Abu Hassan (which translates literally to father of Hassan, Arab countries)