Definition
The forename or given name of a person, as distinguished from the surname or family name. In historical legal usage, "Christian name" referred specifically to the name conferred at baptism, though courts and legal commentators applied the term broadly to any given name regardless of the holder's religion. The Christian name is the first component of a person's full legal name and carries distinct legal significance in pleadings, instruments, conveyances, deeds, and process — errors or omissions in the Christian name could render a document defective or void at common law.
One notable point of historical doctrine: a Christian name may consist of a single letter, a proposition attributed in the historical dictionaries to Wharton and said to have been stated from the bench. This was not merely theoretical — it addressed cases where a person was known by an initial rather than a spelled-out name.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Marked as obsolete. The modern equivalent is "given name" or "first name."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The name given at baptism, or the name used to distinguish one from others of the same family name; the first or given name.
The gap here is historical rather than conceptual. In ordinary speech, "Christian name" is simply an older synonym for "first name" or "given name," and most people understand it that way. The legal significance lies not in the meaning of the phrase itself but in what the law required of that name — precision in legal instruments, sufficiency of identification in writs and pleadings, and rules about what counted as a valid name at all. A researcher encountering the term in historical legal materials needs to understand not just what it means, but what legal weight attached to getting it right.
Common Confusion
CHRISTIAN NAME vs. GIVEN NAME vs. FORENAME: These terms are functionally interchangeable in modern usage, but "Christian name" dominates in legal sources through the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth. Researchers moving between historical and modern sources may find the same legal principle stated under different vocabulary. "Given name" is the preferred neutral term in contemporary legal drafting and statutes, particularly where religious neutrality is required. Substituting them in research is generally safe, but note that "Christian name" in historical sources may carry the specific connotation of a baptismally conferred name, which occasionally mattered in ecclesiastical or probate contexts.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in historical legal materials — particularly pre-twentieth-century deeds, wills, pleadings, writs, and judicial proceedings — will encounter "Christian name" as the operative term wherever modern materials would say "given name" or "first name." Several research traps deserve attention.
First, the precision rule. At common law, misnaming a party in a writ or indictment by the Christian name — or omitting it — could be grounds for abatement or challenge. Defects in name identification generated substantial case law. Researchers working in procedural history, pleading practice, or early American and English litigation need to treat Christian name disputes as a distinct legal topic, not merely a curiosity.
Second, the single-letter rule. The proposition that a Christian name may consist of a single letter is cited without case attribution in the major historical dictionaries (attributed generically to Wharton). Researchers relying on this principle should treat it as received doctrine rather than a settled holding with a traceable pedigree.
Third, religious neutrality in later law. As American law moved toward secular naming conventions, courts and legislatures shifted away from "Christian name" toward "given name." Statutes governing vital records, naturalization, and name-change proceedings increasingly use the neutral term. When a statute uses "Christian name," the question of whether it applies to persons of other faiths or to those with no baptismal history was sometimes litigated. This matters for researchers tracing name-change law or immigration-era naturalization records.
Fourth, corpus connections. This term threads through family law (name changes, legitimacy, adoption records), property law (deed and will precision), civil procedure (misnomer doctrine), and historical court records. Do not treat it as a single-subject entry — follow it across multiple Law Mind encyclopedia contexts.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence are in near-identical agreement, all defining the Christian name as "the baptismal name distinct from the surname" and all repeating the single-letter proposition attributed to Wharton. The uniformity is itself informative: this was settled, uncontroversial doctrine, not a matter of competing definitions.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the secular drift of the term — the gradual judicial and legislative recognition that the legal category of "given name" must accommodate persons who were never baptized, never Christian, or whose names were conferred in non-Western naming traditions. That omission reflects the cultural assumptions of the period in which these dictionaries were compiled, not the full scope of how American courts eventually treated the question.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry conflates two distinct topics — the "christian name" definition is immediately followed by a definition of "church" — suggesting a typographical or formatting artifact in the source. The church definition is not part of the entry on "Christian name" and should be disregarded for research purposes.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Family Law -- Name Changes (Adults and Children in Family Proceedings) (The Law Mind Family Law Encyclopedia) — primary reference for how legal names, including given names, are treated in court proceedings and formal name-change petitions.
Defamation and Privacy Torts -- Invasion of Privacy -- Appropriation of Name or Likeness (The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia) — relevant when the identity function of a name, including the given name, is at issue in a privacy or appropriation context.