Surname - Order of Words

Order of Words

In some cultures, including those of most Western countries, the surname or family name ("last name") is placed after the personal or given name ("first name"). In other cultures the surname is placed first, followed by the given name or names; this is the case in Hungary, parts of Romania, South India, Sri Lanka and countries in the Chinese cultural sphere including Japan, Korea, Vietnam and China.

In Japan and Hong Kong, when people write their personal name in the Latin alphabet, it is common to reverse the order of the given and family names for the convenience of Westerners, so that they know which name is the family name for official/formal purposes. Reversing the order of names for the same reason is also customary for the Baltic Fennic peoples and the Hungarians, but other Uralic peoples traditionally did not have surnames, perhaps because of the clan structure of their societies. Surnames have been imposed by the dominant authorities: evangelists, then administrations. Thus, the Samis saw no change or a transformation of their name, for example: some Sire became Siri, Hætta Jáhkoš Ásslat became Aslak Jacobsen Hætta — as was the norm. However recently, integration into the EU and increased communications with foreigners prompted many Samis to reverse the order of their full name to given name followed by surname, to avoid their given name being mistaken for and used as a surname.

In France and Italy, administrative usage is to put the surname before the first on official documents.

Indian surnames often denote caste, profession, village etc. and are invariably mentioned along with the personal names. However, hereditary last names are not universal. In Indian passports the surname is shown first. In telephone directories the surname is used for collation. In North Indian states the surname is placed after given names where it exists. In south India, where use of two names is by no means universal, surname is placed before personal name and in most cases it is only shown as an initial (for example 'S.' for Suryapeth).