forename

From fore- +‎ name.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɔːneɪm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɔɹneɪm/

forename (plural forenames)

1. A name that precedes the surname.

• (name that precedes the surname): given name, Christian name, prename

• aftername

• (structural) name
• (name that precedes the surname): first name, middle name, baptismal name, confirmation name

forename (third-person singular simple present forenames, present participle forenaming, simple past and past participle forenamed)

1. To assign (someone) a first name.
   • 1798 August, Monitor, “Sacred Biography”, in The Christian Magazine: Or, Evangelical Repository, volume 2, number 18, page 371:

     He forenamed him Ishmael, and assigns as a reason, his own attention to her present distress.

   • 1950, Lizzie Susan Stebbing, Revival: A Modern Introduction to Logic, page 398:

     It may be noted that Le Verrier subsequently suggested another ad hoc hypothesis , namely , that the irregularities in the orbit of Mercury were due to an interior planet, which he forenamed Vulcan.

   • 2020, Dave Postles, Naming the People of England, c.1100-1350, page 68:

     Implicit in the record of the resolution of a dispute in the manorial court of Werrington in 1368 are issues relating to the pattern of forenaming amongst the lower social groups of medieval England, as well, perhaps, as those concerning law and love and arbitration in inter-peasant conflict.

   • 2022, The Saviours of the Vitals:

     The child was named Pujari Venkata Guru Siva Prasad. the boy was forenamed Pujari to serve as a reminder to the people that he will look after the temple of Gurappa Swami and perform Devara.

2. Synonym of prenominate
   • 1880, The Methodist Magazine, page 70:

     This forenaming of Cyrus is, indeed, extraordinary, and calculated to excite attention.

   • 1883, Boston. Registry Department, Report of Record Commissioners - Volume 3, page 134:

     A second Parcell of meadow which wee forenamed, sould unto the sayd John Greenland , containing Three Akers, by estimation more or less: Is lying and scituate alsoe on mistike syde, By and nere the South River , It is Bounded by a part of the South River where it divides, and it is Bounded Northwest by the Lands of Richard Dexters, alsoe it is Bounded North Easte by the Lands of Richard Cooke.

   • 1962, Aryan Path - Volume 33, page 213:

     So, now, Dickens turned to another idea prefigured in his notebook — a novel which might have been called Time (as he proposed) instead of A Tale of Two Cities (as it became), and which has as a central character the person he forenamed in his notes as "Memory Carton.”

   • 2016, Zacharias Tanee Fomum, The way of Discipleship:

     Before His birth, He was forenamed, “a man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3).

3. To appoint in advance.
   • 1839, Sir William Francis Patrick Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France, page 41:

     Now, the Central Junta having to deceive the people, affirmed that Sir Arthur Wellesley had retreated to the frontiers of Portugal at the very moement when the French might have been driven to the Pyrenees, came very soon to believe this, their own absurd calumny, and resolved to send the army at La Carolina headlong against Madrid: nay, such was their pitch of confidence, that forenaming the civil and military authorities, they arranged a provisionary system for the future administration of the capital, with a care, that they denied to the army which was to put them in possession.

   • 1958, National Real Estate and Building Journal - Volume 59, Issues 1-6:

     CAP provides for the forenaming of approved mortgagees in small communities […]

   • 2012, Chris Heath, The Denby Dale Pies, 1788–2000:

     A committee was forenamed consisting of Messrs: G W Naylor, W Lister, Jno McDonald, Geo Barraclough, M Worsley, Jos Blacker, R H Morley and Heap with Mr Wood as secretary.