Today I learned from one of our PhD students from Myanmar that they don’t have a surname. In her culture people all have individual names, typically beginning with a name chosen by their parents that starts with the same first letter as the day of the week they were born, to correspond to their horoscope.
She therefore knew exactly what day she was born, while the two New Zealanders in the room had to look that up on our calendars.
The link below has some more about it. Also notable are that “Burmese women generally do not change their name at marriage” and “Burmese people may also change their name at any point in their life.”
culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/myanm…
#TIL #naming #CulturalDiversity #Myanmar #Burma
Myanmar (Burmese) - Naming
Information on naming conventions and practices, as well as how to address othersCultural Atlas
Svavar the Neurospicy
in reply to Jon Sullivan • • •Iceland has surnames but they're mostly patronymic and people are addressed by their first name regardless of social status.
Those with foreign parents and members of families with existing family surnames can use those in addition to or instead of the patronymic name.
Iceland recently defined a non-binary alternative to the 'son' and 'daughter' patronymic suffixes.
People with absent or estranged fathers sometimes change their surname to use their mother's name.