Birth Name

The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth register may by that fact alone become the person's legal name.

The assumption in the Western world is often that the name from birth (or perhaps from baptism or brit milah) will persist to adulthood in the normal course of affairs—either throughout life or until marriage. Possible changes of a person's name include middle names, diminutive forms, changes relating to parental status (due to one's parents' divorce or adoption by different parents). The term "birth name" is also sometimes used for trans people even in cases where it is still their legal name, similar to the term deadname.

The French and English-adopted née is the feminine past participle of naître, which means "to be born". Né is the masculine form.

The term née, having feminine grammatical gender, can be used to denote a woman's surname at birth that has been replaced or changed. In most English-speaking cultures, it is specifically applied to a woman's maiden name after her surname has changed due to marriage. The term né can be used to denote a man's surname at birth that has subsequently been replaced or changed. The diacritic mark (the acute accent) over the e is considered significant to its spelling, and ultimately its meaning, but is sometimes omitted.

According to Oxford University's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, the terms are typically placed after the current surname (e.g., "Margaret Thatcher, née Roberts" or "Bill Clinton, né Blythe"). Since they are terms adopted into English (from French), they do not have to be italicized, but they often are.

In Polish tradition, the term de domo (literally meaning "of the house" in Latin) may be used, with rare exceptions, meaning the same as née.