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''byname'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250827013508-00-⌔

byname - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

byname (plural bynames)

  • Any secondary name, particularly
    • ✤ Synonym: to-name
    • Synonym of epithet, a descriptive and distinguishing additional name.
      • ✤ Lions-heart, is… the by-name of K. Richard.1
      • ✤ The term surname originally denoted an additional name—that is, one used in addition to an individual’s given name, with no implication that it was hereditary. Across medieval Europe a surname was at first often no more than a byname, an ad-hoc sobriquet that was descriptively true of the individual to whom it was given.2
    • (Germanic paganism) A formal epithet for a god or goddess, used in rituals in Heathenry.
    • (Scotland and UK dialectical) Synonym of pseudonym, a second name used to disguise authorship etc.
    • (archaic) Synonym of nickname, an informal personal name.
    • (archaic) Synonym of surname, a hereditary distinguishing additional name.
      • ✤ Some of these by-names… remained many years after to them, and theirs; amongst which Plantagenist was entailed on the Royal bloud of England.3
    • (archaic, historical) Synonym of cognomen, a personal or hereditary additional name in ancient Roman contexts.
      • ✤ Eutropius… gives him the additional name of Crinitus, perhaps a by-name of his family.4

Verb

byname (third-person singular simple present bynames, present participle bynaming, simple past and past participle bynamed)

  • (transitive, archaic) To assign a byname to.
    • ✤ Synonym: to-name

Etymology

From by- +‎ name. Cognate with Dutch bijnaam (“nickname”), German Beiname (“nickname, epithet”), Swedish binamn, Danish binavn and Norwegian Bokmål binavn.

Pronunciation

  • (General American) IPA: /ˈbaɪˌneɪm/

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1631, John Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments…, page 644: ↩

  2. 2016, Patrick Hanks et al., The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, volume I, page xii: ↩

  3. 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-History of Britain…, page 30: ↩

  4. 1865, Charles Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, volume VIII, page 16: ↩

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Secondary

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