|
What's In A Name is a website about names, their origins and their popularity.
Names are nouns - labels for a person, place or thing. To be more precise, a name is a label for a specific person, place or thing. We refer to these as proper names and they are capitalized.
In this website, we look at personal names (people) brand names (products), place names (such as states), and variations.
Personal Names
We don't know exactly when humans first began using names. Ancient written texts and mythologies contain examples of names and it is safe to say that that naming precedes this. Since the majority of names have an etymological meaning, it is also safe to assume that most names were originally words that were in usage.
Names probably came about as populations increased as a way of distinguishing individuals and to carry information about our own origin as with family or clan names. In the 13th century about a third of the male population of the Britain had a given name of William, Richard or John.
This site deals primarily with English names. Entire websites are devoted to names in other cultures - for example, Chinese generation names identify the generation of the bearer and the names used by some African cultures tell the order in which siblings were born.
Some Terms
A given name is a name that is assumed by a person at birth and is not a family name. In Europe and North America, the given name precedes the family name and are generally referred to as first names, forenames, or Christian names.
A family name (also called surname or last name) is a name that is passed from one generation to the next. In many cultures a woman adopts her husband's family name when they are married.
Other Types of Names
For the purposes of this site, we include in our pages products, terms in sports (particularly those that evolved from a person's name or place name), U.S. state names (place names) and information on the popularity of certain names.
|
