English Vocabulary - First name? Given name? Forename? What's your name?

Hi, my name is Rebecca, and in today's lesson we're going to talk about something which

I think you might think is very basic, and that is the question, answering the question

"What's your name?"

Now, you probably learned this right at the very start of your English lessons, a long

time ago probably, that one of the first things conversationally that we learn when we learn

a language is how to ask somebody their name, right?

What's your name?

So that you probably know, and I don't think you make any mistakes with that.

However, sometimes when we're filling out forms, they ask for our name, right?

And they might write certain terms underneath which you might not recognize.

So that's what this lesson is about, to help you to fill out those kind of forms so that

you know exactly what to write when you're filling out a form, alright?

So let's talk about different parts of the name.

Let's take a hypothetical character and we'll call him John Smith, alright?

So John Smith, what's his first name?

John.

What's his given name?

John.

What's his forename?

Again, this particular one is not used in speech, it's used in writing.

Forename also means first name or given name, which is John in our example.

And in case the person is a Christian and received the first name at his christening

or her christening, which is a ceremony which happens to a baby, alright?

So at that point the Christian baby is given a name, a first name, and that is sometimes

referred to as the Christian name.

So if you hear the terms Christian name, of course that will only apply to a Christian.

If you're of any other religion, that will not apply to you.

However, it is used, so Christian name means the first name, forename is the first name,

given name is the first name, and first name is John, alright?

In our example.

Now, let's look at John Smith.

So the second word, Smith, is his last name, Smith is also his surname, Smith is also his

family name, right?

So you might come across any of these terms also when they're asking for the last name

or surname.

Please take note of the spelling of the word surname, it's not sir like aye aye sir or

dear sir, right?

It's S-U-R.

So watch out for that spelling change, surname, family name, last name, same thing, alright?

Another thing which is sometimes requested on a form is your middle name, now of course

if you come from Mexico and many other countries, you have many wonderful middle names, so I'm

not sure how you'll fill out that form exactly, but some people have only one middle name

and some people have no middle name, alright?

But that's known as the middle name, and sometimes on a form they don't ask for the middle name,

they just ask for the middle initial.

So for example, if his name was John Andrew Smith, then Andrew is his middle name, his

middle initial then would be A, that's right.

So initial is the first letter of that name, alright?

So now I hope that you can answer the question, what's your name more fully than before, alright?

One small point, in some countries they do a kind of translation of this question in

their other, in their native language, for example in India, a translation from Hindi

might be "What's your good name?", but that doesn't really work in English, it's not correct

to say "What's your good name?", it is a literal translation from Hindi, for example, and perhaps

from other Indian languages, I'm not really sure.

So if you're going to ask the question, just ask "What's your name?", it's still respectful

in English to ask it that way, alright?

That's it for now, if you'd like to do a quiz on this subject or various other English topics,

please visit our website at www.engvid.com.

Bye for now, and good luck with your English.