Editing German name (section)

{{Use Oxford spelling|date=January 2025}}
{{short description|none}} <!-- "none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see [[WP:SDNONE]] -->
{{Distinguish|Germanic name}}
[[Personal name]]s in [[German-speaking Europe]] consist of one or several [[given name]]s (''Vorname'', plural ''Vornamen'') and a [[surname]] (''Nachname, Familienname''). The ''Vorname'' is usually gender-specific. A name is usually cited in the "[[Name order|Western order]]" of "given name, surname". The most common exceptions are alphabetized list of surnames, e.g. "[[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach, Johann Sebastian]]", as well as some official documents and spoken southern [[German dialects]]. In most of this, the German conventions parallel the naming conventions in most of Western and Central Europe, including [[English name|English]], [[Dutch name|Dutch]], [[Italian name|Italian]], and [[French name|French]]. There are some vestiges of a [[patronymic]] system as they survive in parts of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, but these do not form part of the official name.

Women traditionally adopted their husband's name upon marriage and would occasionally retain their maiden name by [[hyphen]]ation, in a so-called ''[[Doppelname]]'', e.g. "[[Else Lasker-Schüler]]". Recent legislation motivated by [[gender equality]] now allows a married couple to choose the surname they want to use, including an option for men to keep their birthname hyphenated to the common family name in the same way. It is also possible for the spouses to do without a common surname altogether and to keep their birthnames.

The most common given names are either [[Biblical name|Biblical]] ("[[Christian name|Christian]]", derived from names of Biblical characters or saints; ''Johann/Hans'' "John", ''Georg/Jörg'' "George", ''Jakob'' "Jacob" and "James"; ''Anna'', ''Maria'', ''Barbara'', ''Christina'') or from [[Germanic name]]s (''Friedrich'' "Frederick", ''Ludwig'' "Louis", etc.) Since the 1990s, there has however been a trend of parents picking non-German forms of names, either for originality, or influenced by international celebrities, e.g. ''Liam'' (Gaelic form of ''William'') rather than the German equivalent ''Wilhelm''{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} and ''Mila''.

Most surnames are derived either from given names ([[patronym]]), occupations, or from geographical origin, less often from bodily attributes. They became heritable with the beginning of central demographic records in the [[early modern period]].