Names

[Aaron E. Drews]

On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Tivoli Majors wrote:

}        I received an inquiry today and wonder if someone could help. Someone
}asked me if there is a way of referring to the beginning portion of names
}like MacDonald, McCarthy, O'Neill, etc. Does anyone know of a term to
}describe these parts of names?


patronymic?  (also -ovich, sen/son, etc)

--Aaron


________________________________________________________________________
Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk                  Departments of English Language and
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron       Theoretical & Applied  Linguistics

"MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF"
        --Death