¿Cuál es su apellido?
Is this grammatically correct to ask someone their last name (surname) ? The translator shows it, but I just wanted to be sure.
5 Answers
Yes, it is. If you were to ask ¿Qué es su apellido? You would be asking them what is their last name (as in: What is it? What is it's purpose? What is a last name?)
Why shouldn't it be?
The last name in English is the last on you names? example in Mexico we use father last name and Mother last name
The last name is the mother name or that's the maiden name?
The terms in English reflect a cultural bias (based on the order in which names are commonly written). What we call the "last name" would be better (more culturally neutrally) described as the father's family name. A woman's maiden name is whatever her family name was (the family name of her father) before she married (i.e. when she was a maid, [hence the term]).
In Asian languages (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc.) One says the (father's) family name first followed by given names. Because the terminology dates back to when writing was typically vertical, the "given" name is (at least in Japanese) often referred to as the "bottom"/"lower" name. Japanese also has position-independent nomenclature (similar to "nombre"/"apellido").
Hi Patrizia. Maiden name refers to the mother's last name before she got married and took the name of her husband (the father). It varies by family and country, but traditionally people take the last name of their father. Increasingly, women are keeping their maiden name, however, so some people have parents with different last names. Because of this shift, there are also some people with hyphenated names (i.e. "Smith-Brown" - mother's maiden name is "Smith", father's last name is "Brown").
The last name in English is the last on you names? example in Mexico we use father last name and Mother last name
The last name is the mother name or that's the maiden name?
