Silvio's question is a tantalizing and very interesting one. Surely there 
is no single answer. In different circumstances, either name may modify the 
other (and I'm ignoring the complication of any additional names like 
Trevor's "Leo"). "Johnson" can be an answer to "Which David?" and "David" 
can be an answer to "Which Johnson?" That's unlike regular modification, 
because whilst "Acid" might be an answer to "What sort of indigestion?", 
"Indigestion" is scarcely conceivable as an answer to "What did acid[ity] 
apply to?" except in a context of mishearing a previous utterence. (Indeed, 
I found the "question" itself hard to formulate in an appropriate way!)

So surely the proper answer is, whatever the historical development of the 
2-part personal name, that it is not a one-headed structure and that each 
element MAY (not MUST) modify the other. Any further detail is likely to do 
with the way or ways in which one situates oneself culturally. My own 
self-perception is that, for most everyday purposes, I'm Richard, and if 
necessary I will specify myself as Coates, but in the context of academic 
onomastics I'm Coates, and for reasons of statistical accident I would 
rarely need to specify myself as Richard (though following convention I 
would do so redundantly where required e.g. at the top of an article).

Also, my usage has changed. When asked, say over the phone, to give my name 
(e.g. when ordering a taxi or a takeaway meal), I used to say "Coates" 
because I must have thought that one's surname was one's kyrionym (anyone 
else remember Fred Householder's article on kyriolexia in Language 59 
(1983)?). Now I will typically, but variably, say "Richard", partly because 
English rules of kyrionymy have changed and partly because I got fed up of 
spelling out C-O-A-T-E-S every time, which I don't have to do with my given 
name.

If that shows anything, it serves to point up that either of one's names 
"is one's name", both together may be "one's name", neither is irremediably 
one's kyrionym, and that either may modify the other.

Sorry to have gone on for so long.

Richard - or Coates - or both

Kyrionym: Householder argued that in a set of (near-)synonyms 
native-speaker perceptions allowed one to say that one was the "real" word 
for the concept whether stylistically marked in some way or not. In these 
sets, the capitalized one would be the kyriolex: {WOMAN, lady, female}, 
{SIGNATURE, autograph, moniker}, {SHIT, poo, faeces, excrement [and many 
others]}. I've invented _kyrionym_ to mean `the subjectively-perceived real 
proper name for an individual (person or thing)'.



--On 19 August 2004 19:20 +0200 Silvio Brendler 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Have the following questions been discussed in linguistic literature
> concerning English English? If so, I'd be very grateful for the
> bibliographical details of such discussions. If not, I'd like to know
> your opinion.
>
> (1) Does the first name premodify the last name, or does the last name
> postmodify the first name?
>
> (2) Is the order in some dialects reversed? I mean, do people refer to
> "Smith John" instead of "John Smith"? (This is done in southern Germany,
> incl. the Upper Lusatia, where I come from. I would usually refer to a
> friend as "[der] Wágner Thomas"/"[der] Wagner Thómas" and not as "[der]
> Thomas Wágner".)
>
> Silvio Brendler
>
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----------------

Richard Coates

HoD, Dept of Linguistics and English Language
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