Andronym

Origin

- + onym + -. First attested around 1906.

Full definition of andronym

Noun

1. A man's name or a word derived from a man's name.
2. The name of the husband, taken on by the wife.
• 1991, Michael Herzfeld, Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece Chapter Silence, Submission and Subversion: Toward a Poetics of Womanhood, A woman joins her husbands patrigroup at marriage; she acquires her husbands surname and andronym, and is treated as the bride of the patrigroup in village usage.
• 1999, She often uses the andronym rather than the patronym in her identifying inscription.

1. A male name adopted by a woman.
• 2001, K. K. Ruthven, Faking Literature, Critical of Loti's sexist exploitation of women in his serial performances as an "Orientalist" writer, Marie Léra (writing under the andronym of 'Marc Hélys') persuaded a couple of friends she visited in Constantinople to join her in masquerading as veiled Turkish women when meeting the novelist

Anagrams

• Normandy