Word.ws English Dictionary

sur-name

sur-name is the obsolete form of surname.

Meaning of surname

Noun

surname (plural surnames)

  1. The portion of a person's name that is generally hereditary or treated as an indicator of a person's family, which may be shared with other members of the family, or otherwise derived from their names in some fashion; distinguished from that person's given name(s).
    • James is my first name, and Smith is my surname.
  2. (obsolete) Synonym of epithet, an additional name, particularly those derived from a birthplace, quality, or achievement.
    • Barsabas (whose syrname was Iustus).1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Acts j:[23]
    Synonyms:
    epithet
  3. (obsolete) Synonym of nickname, an additional name given to a person, place, or thing, a byname.
    • I have before declared that Baal was the Sun, and Baal Peor, a sirname, from a particular place of his worship.1638, Abraham Cowley, Davideis, section IV
    Synonyms:
    nickname
  4. (Classical-studies) The cognomen of Roman names.

See all 6 meanings of surname

Forms of sur-name

pluralsur-names

Questions about sur-name

What is sur-name the obsolete form of?
Sur-name is the obsolete form of surname.

Words near sur-name in the dictionary

  1. Suquamish
  2. Suqutra
  3. Suqutri
  4. Suquṭra
  5. sur-
  6. sur-name
  7. sur-names
  8. Sur.
  9. sura
  10. Surabaya
  11. Surabhi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sur-name (page history and authors); surname (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “sur-name.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sur-name. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.