Meaning of first name in English

first name

/ˈfɝːst ˌneɪm/ uk

/ˈfɜːst ˌneɪm/

the name that was given to you when you were born and that comes before your family name:

call someone by their first name It can be rude to call people by their first name if they are much older or more important than you.

on a first-name basis US (UK on first-name terms)

friendly or familiar enough with someone to call that person by their first name:

Staff and pupils at the school were on a first-name basis.

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We only knew him as Mr Fletcher - he never told us his first name.
My father and I both have the same first name, John, although he is usually known by his nickname, Jack.

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(Definition of first name from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

first name | Intermediate English

first name

noun [ C ]

us/ˈfɜrst ˈneɪm/

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your personal name, which comes before your other names:

"James" and "Sarah" are first names.

(Definition of first name from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of first name

first name

On my last birthday one of my sons wrote a poem for me, using the letters of my first name to start each line.

From TIME

Those e-mailed introductions include the clients first name, phone number and a four to five line blurb about them.

From CBS Local

The first three letters of his first name and the first three letters of his last name are both well-known military abbreviations.

From NPR

Within the enlisted ranks, do they call each other by the first name?

From Dallas Morning News

He rattled off a few examples; one friend uses a split first name, another uses an abbreviated middle name.

From The Verge

She spelled my first name wrong in the inside cover.

From Huffington Post

He would only give me his first name.

From CNN

The knitter prepares a card describing that person's contribution (with first name only) and signs the card (with first name only).

From San Francisco Chronicle

If your email personalization stops at using their first name, you're five steps behind.

From VentureBeat

The girl who has since come to be known only by her first name later won global renown for her work promoting education for girls.

From NPR

He asked to be identified by his first name only out of concern for his safety.

From Huffington Post

He asked to be identified by first name only.

From NPR

One crucial plot twist depends entirely on the coincidence of two characters having relatives with the same first name.

From The Atlantic

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

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