[General] surname or last name?

[Delapoma]

Hi, Iam a little confused with the similarity between surname and last name, someone told me that surname is British and last name American, is that so? Also, traffic warden is British, and in USA is traffic patrol, Am I right? Thanks a lot again.

[sarat_106]

Originally Posted by deping

Hi, Iam a little confused with the similarity between surname and last name, someone told me that surname is British and last name American, is that so? Also, traffic warden is British, and in USA is traffic patrol, Am I right? Thanks a lot again.

Surname has universal use.It is a name shared in common to identify the members of a family, as distinguished from each member's given name or first name. Also called family name, last name,a person's family name. Originally, many surnames identified a person by his connection with another person, usually his father (Johnson, MacDonald); others gave his residence (Orleans, York, Atwood [i.e., living at the woods]) or occupation (Weaver, Hooper, Taylor). A surname could also beThe common way of addressing people, preceded by Mr, Mrs, Miss, Dr etc; Smith is a common British surname. This is both a western as well as eastern culture.
Examples: Mr. Mike Smith = Mike(first or given name)+Smith(surname name)
Dr. Manamohan Sigh.= Manamohan(given name)+Singh(surname)]

The other term traffic warden is British but traffic patrol has universal use.

[Searching for language]

In Canada it is a traffic officer who is on traffic patrol.

I believe the same applies to the USA.

Not a teacher.