Does the name come first or first in English?

The general structure of English names is: Christian name, self name and surname.

Like william jefferson clinton. But on many occasions, middle names are often omitted, such as George Bush, and many people prefer to use nicknames rather than formal Christian names, such as Bill Clinton. The above Christian names and middle names are also called human names. English names are different from Chinese names. Chinese names are preceded by surnames, while English names are just the opposite. For example: Kayley Chung, Xiaoming; English-jack wood.

According to the custom of English-speaking people, when a baby is baptized, it is called the Christian name by the priest or parents or relatives. In the future, I can take a second name after my Christian name. The sources of English names are as follows:

1, using the names in the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, ancient celebrities or literary masterpieces as Christian names.

2. Take the names of ancestors' native places, mountains and rivers, birds and animals, fish and insects, flowers and trees as Christian names.

3. Different variants of Christian names.

4. Use nicknames.

5. Use word formation to create new Christian names, such as reverse order and merger.

6. Take the mother's maiden name as the middle name.

Extended data

For a long time, the British had only a first name and no last name. It was not until the16th century that the use of surnames became widely popular. According to experts' estimation, there are as many as 6.5438+0.5 million surnames in English-speaking countries. Professor Zhou Haizhong, a famous scholar in China, pointed out in the article "A Study of English Names" published in 1992 that there are about 3,000 common English surnames. The etymology of English surnames mainly includes:

1. Borrow Christian names directly, such as Clinton.

2. Add affixes to Christian names to express blood relationship, such as suffixes -s, -son,-ing; Prefixes M'-, Mc-, Mac-, Fitz-, etc. Both mean the son or descendant of so-and-so

3. Attach identity affixes before Christian names, such as St.-, De-, Du=, La-, Le-.

4. Reflect place names, landforms or environmental features, such as streams and mountains.

5. Reflect identity or occupation, such as Carter and Smith.

6. Reflect personal characteristics, such as: black, Longfellow.

7. Borrow animal and plant names, such as birds and rice.

8. From the combination of two surnames, such as Edward Burne-Jones.