Dictionary

front name en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (archaic) A person's given name.
   • Because, yesterday everybody said ‘Dr. Lavendar.’ I didn’t think Doctor could be your front name. All the other people had front names. 1905–6, Margaret Wade Campbell Deland, The Awakening of Helena Richie, Harper & Brothers (1906), page 97
   • I remember one super-cool Chicano in high school who was forever trying to make movidas (time) with every female he saw. His opening line inevitably was 'girl what's your front name'. 1981 January 27, Alicia Velasquez Angelo, “Careless Bilingual Student May Tell It Like It Isn't”, in Modesto Bee:
   • “Well, the front name I goes by nowadays is Dick,” said he, “and as I ain’t got no partic’ler use for no more name, jes’ call me Dick. […] ” 1897 March, Montague Stevens, “‘Front Name’ Dick”, in The Cosmopolitan, Volume XXII, Number 5, The Cosmopolitan Press (1897), page 553
   • "Alfred. Too much ceremony about surnames. Between friends like us, surnames are all wrong. As a friend... purely as a friend, I ask you...what's your front name?" 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 185:
   • “Mr. Hooker, sa... Mr. Hooker, I...” “And forget the Mr., too. We're friends.” “That would not be polite. And I do not know your front name.” 2003, Mickey Spillane, Something's Down There: A Novel - Page 11

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