Name acquired from one's father's, grandfather's or earlier (male) ancestor's first name. Some cultures use a patronymic where other cultures use a surname or family name; other cultures (like Russia) use both a patronymic and a surname.
The word 'patronymic' is correct and usable in written English. You can use it when referring to the name of a person derived from their father's first name, such as "Bobson," the patronymic of Robert.
Gone was all that balderdash about the sacred mystique of the Russian state; journalists had his mobile number and called him Boris, without his patronymic.
In the first book of the Iliad, the son of Zeus and Leto (Apollo, line 9) is as instantly identifiable to the Greek reader by his patronymic as are the sons of Atreus (Agamemnon and Menelaus, line 16).
Michael was the first emperor to bear a family name, and his use of the patronymic, Rhangabe, bears witness to the emergence of the great families, whose accumulation of landed properties would soon threaten the integrity of those smallholders upon whom the empire depended for its taxes and its military service.
Sometimes a patronymic is simply the father's given name (Thomas, Edward) or its genitive form (Edwards).
I've always been fascinated by him (as I was by Machiavelli, who became a character in my novel "The Enchantress of Florence"), both because of my father's interest in him, which led him to derive our family name from his — my father wanted a modern, permanent surname, unlike the name-and-patronymic format, which was traditional — and because of Ibn Rushd's rationalism.
Documentation for Pisidian is extremely sparse, comprising some two dozen tomb inscriptions consisting only of names and patronymics.
(In Iceland, people generally go by their first names. Surnames are typically just patronymics: the father's first name with "son" or "dóttir" attached).
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Cristina Valenza
Retail Lead Linguist @ Apple Inc.