English Names

Most English people have three names: a first name, a middle name and the family name.

Their family name comes last. For example, my full name is Jim Allan Green. Green is my family name. My parents gave me both of my other names.

People don’t use their middle names very much. So “John Henry Brown” is usually called “John Brown”. People never use Mr. Mrs. or Miss before their first names. So you can say John Brown, or Mr. Brown, but you should never say Mr. John. They use Mr., Mrs. or Miss with the family name but never with the first name.

I think this is different from Chinese names, In China, the first name is the family name, and the last name is the given name. For example, a man called Zhou Jian puts his family name Zhou first.

Sometimes people ask me about my name “What you were born why did your parents call you Jim” they ask. “Why did the you choose that name?” The answer is they didn’t call me Jim. They called me James. James was the name of my grandfather. In England, people usually call me Jim for short. That’s because it is shorter and easier than James.