Generational suffixes are used to distinguish persons who share the same name within a family. A generational suffix can be used informally (for disambiguation purposes or as nicknames) and is often incorporated in legal documents.
United States In the United States the most common name suffixes are
senior and
junior, which are abbreviated as
Sr. and
Jr. with initial capital letters, with or without preceding commas. In Britain these are rarer, but when they are used the abbreviations are
Snr and
Jnr, respectively. The use of these social terms is governed by etiquette but not enshrined in law. According to
The Emily Post Institute, an authority on etiquette, the term
Jr. can be correctly used only if a male child's first, middle, and last names are identical to his father's (current) names. When a male child has the same name as his grandfather, uncle or male cousin, but not his father, he can use the
II suffix, which is pronounced "the second". (In rare cases, the
II suffix may be used for a son, e.g. former American president
Barack Hussein Obama II and his father,
Barack Hussein Obama Sr. The example of Obama Sr., born Baraka Obama, also shows that suffixes are based on the father's current legal name and not necessarily their birth name.) When the suffixes are spelled out in full, they are not capitalized. Social name suffixes are far more frequently applied to men than to women. A child with a name that varies from a parent's name in middle name only may also be informally known as Jr. (e.g.
Francis Wayne Sinatra, son of
Francis Albert Sinatra), and his father may be known informally as Sr. (e.g.,
Paul John Teutul and his son,
Paul Michael Teutul). Roman numeral suffixes can be used to name a child after another family member like an uncle, cousin, or ancestor (including grandfather or great-grandfather). For example,
Quentin Roosevelt II was named for his late uncle,
Quentin I. Similarly, a grandson of
Henry Ford I was named
Henry II (the name again skipped a generation with the birth of Henry II's grandson, Henry Ford III). Historically, when child mortality was high, a child could be named for its deceased sibling (a
necronym), with or without a suffix (such was the case of
Salvador Dalí). There is at least one known case of multiple siblings having the same name in modern times—that of
George Foreman's five sons, including eldest George Jr. and youngest George VI. The suffix
III is used after either
Jr. or
II and, like subsequent numeric suffixes, does not need to be restricted to one family line. For example, if Randall and Patrick Dudley are brothers and if Randall has a son before Patrick, he may call his son
Patrick II. If Patrick now has a son, his son is
Patrick Jr. (or
Patrick III; alternatively,
Patrick II if Randall did not have a son named Patrick II). As time passes, the
III suffix goes to the son of either Patrick Jr. or Patrick II, whoever is first to have a son named Patrick. This is one way it is possible and correct for a Junior to father a IV. Another example involves President
Ulysses S. Grant and his sons
Frederick,
Ulysses Jr., and
Jesse. When Frederick's son
Ulysses was born in 1881, Ulysses Jr. did not yet have a son named after himself. Therefore, Frederick's son was Ulysses III. Ulysses Jr.'s son, born afterwards in 1893, was
Ulysses IV. Jesse's son
Chapman was the father of Ulysses V, as neither Ulysses III nor Ulysses IV had sons named for themselves. There is no hard-and-fast rule over what happens to suffixes when the most senior of the name dies. Etiquette expert and humorist
Judith Martin, for example, believes they should all move up (as
Sr. and subsequent suffixes can be redistributed), but most agree that this is up to the individual families. There are instances of daughters being named after their mothers and also using the suffix
Jr. (such as
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Jr.,
Winifred Sackville Stoner Jr., and Carolina Herrera Jr.) or after their grandmothers or aunts with the suffix
II, but this is not common. Usually, the namesake is given a different middle name and so would not need a suffix for differentiation. Furthermore, once the woman marries, she would most commonly take the surname of her husband and thus do away with the generational suffix. The title
Jr. is sometimes used in legal documents, particularly those pertaining to wills and estates, to distinguish among female family members of the same name. A wife who uses the title
Mrs. often would also use her husband's full name, including the suffix. In less formal situations, the suffix may be omitted: Mrs. Lon Chaney Jr. on a wedding invitation but Mrs. L. Chaney or simply Shannon Chaney for a friendly note. Widows are conventionally entitled to retain their late husband's full names and suffixes, but divorcées do not continue to style themselves with a former husband's full name and suffix even if they retain the surname. Common nicknames for a junior or II include "Chip" (as in "chip off the old block"); e.g., President
James Earl Carter Jr.'s second son James Earl Carter III goes by "Chip". Another is "Bud" (predominantly in the American South); e.g.,
Marlon Brando Jr.'s childhood nickname was "Bud". Another alternative is "
Skip"; e.g.,
Harry "Skip" Caray Jr. and
Harry Christopher "Chip" Caray III, or "Skip" may imply that the name skips a generation. Common nicknames for a III are "
Trip(p)", "Trace", and "
Trey" which denote that the name carrier is the third person to carry the name. Notable examples include
Green Day drummer
Tré Cool (Frank Edwin Wright III),
South Park co-creator
Trey Parker (Randolph Severn Parker III), and Trey Smith (Willard Carroll Smith III), elder son of actor
Will Smith (Willard Carroll Smith II).
United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, the suffixes "Snr" and "Jnr" are rare, and not usually considered part of a person's name as such. Ordinal suffixes such as "III" are generally reserved for monarchs; however, the
General Register Office has stated that, whereas it would normally reject a string of symbols or letters that "has no intrinsic sense of being a name" when registering a child, a suffix such as "III" would be accepted. Those who inherit a title of nobility do not use ordinal suffixes, but are distinguished from any ancestors with the same name by their position in the order of succession; for example
Arthur Wellesley, 2nd Duke of Wellington, is thus distinguished from his father,
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.
Other European countries In
French, the designations for a father and son with the same name are (father) and (son), an example being
Alexandre Dumas and
Alexandre Dumas. (the young) may be used to distinguish between brothers. In
Portuguese, common designations are (junior), (son), (grandson), (great-grandson), and (nephew). In
Dutch, "sr." and "jr." are used socially rather than legally, but the system is not extended to "III" and beyond. Instead, Piet de Vries jr. will become Piet de Vries sr. upon the death of his father if there is a grandson also named Piet to take on the junior title. Otherwise the suffix falls away. In
Swedish, (the elder) and (the younger), abbreviated and respectively, are sometimes used to distinguish two people with the same name, often but not necessarily, father and son. An example is
Gösta Ekman d.ä., actor and grandfather of actor
Gösta Ekman d.y., cf.
Pliny the Elder and
Pliny the Younger which in Swedish are
Plinius den äldre and
Plinius den yngre. In
Irish, (young), sometimes anglicised as "oge", may be used to distinguish two related people who might otherwise
have the same name. The suffix is used to mean 'of or relating to' a noun or an adjective e.g. or . == See also ==