This is the kind of weird thing I think about from time to time. Prior to Rome, it seems that most of the historical figures we know had only a single name (e.g., Archimedes). During the Roman era you get people with two names; I think they mostly tend to be known by their last name (e.g., Claudius Ptolemaus, known as Ptolemy). Then in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages there are a lot of single names again (e.g., Alcuin, Bede). Then since the Renaissance, it’s mostly been two names again, and famous people have mostly been known by their last name (up until the past century or so, when some entertainers started to be known by their first name).
But from the Renaissance, we have a handful of famous people who are known by their first name, such as Michaelangelo, Galileo, and Rembrandt. I might also include Leonardo and Tycho, although nowadays they are often referred to by both of their names (but rarely by their last name alone).
Any other examples? People who had two names but are primarily known by the first, not the last? I’m excluding:
Royalty, nobility, Popes, and the like, who traditionally take a single name
People from other cultures where single names are common (e.g., Powhatan)
Stage or pen names (e.g., Saki)
I would suggest limiting the time period to pre-1950, to avoid the Chers, Beyonces and Rihannas. It might also be simpler to stick to the Renaissance and beyond, because before that, things get blurry (like, is “Christ” a name or an honorific, and anyway, it’s not a “surname” in the modern Western sense).
Also… how about the first modern entertainer to be known primarily by their first name (again, stage names excluded)? I think maybe Moe Howard (and that happened because he used his real first name, Moses, as his character name).
I was wondering about Napoleon. He was Emperor, so that puts him in the royalty category. However, for some reason, I have the feeling he would be known as Napoleon even if he hadn’t become Emperor.
I know you said pre-1950, but I think it’s worth mentioning Arnold Schwarzenegger since he is pretty well known as just “Arnold” (I think most people would probably think of him if they just heard that name, alone,) and he did not deliberately set out to make himself known by his first name like Prince or Beyonce did. He’s just SO larger-than-life, and has such an uncommon first name, that it was easy for him to just become known as “Arnold.”
Probably not. As General and consul, he was usually Bonaparte. As Emperor, of course, he was Napoleon, and you could get in trouble for calling him anything else, since to do so was to deny his royal status.
After his fall, it became optional–if you liked him and believe his empire legitimate, you called him Napoleon. If you were partial to the restored Bourbons, or to the republic, and believed him a usurper, you called him Bonaparte (or worse yet, Buonaparte).
In time historians recognized that whether you liked him or not, he did in fact exercise power as emperor for 11 years, and thus Napoleon he remained. But if he had died in 1802, he’d be Bonaparte.
Hildegarde was a popular singer in the 30s and 40s. Her real name was Hildegarde Sell.
In entertainment, Fatty Arbuckle was known as “Fatty” in many of his films. His costar, Mabel Normand, was billed as Mabel (e.g., Mabel and Fatty’s Married Life. Charlie Chaplin was billed in France simply as “Charlot,” the diminutive of “Charles.”
Though they used their last names, everyone knew who Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo were.
Surnames in Europe were not used until about the 12th century, and it took several centuries before most people had or used a surname. As the population of regions grew, the use of surnames was necessary to distinguish between two people with the same names. In the advent of surnames, they more commonly referred to lineage (e.g. Andrew son of John, or Andrew Johnson), occupation (e.g. Andrew the bridge builder, Andrew Bridger), or city of region of origin (e.g. Andrew from the hills, or Andrew Hill). Eventually surnames were passed down to children and so on.
Long way of saying, historically, almost everyone was known by their first name.
It’s also his first name – surnames are first names in China, Japan and Korea. But perhaps the OP should have excluded cases where the first name is a surname.
At least he is famous in the DPRK (North Korea). Joe Dresnok is an American defector who has acted in many DPRK films and is quite a local celebrity… going by the name “Arthur” to many. Everyone I met in Pyongyang had heard of or had met him.
It’s his “first name” in that it’s the first character in his name, but it’s functionally the same as his “last name,” hence why he shared it with his siblings and most of his kids.
Which part of Europe would that be? Because I’ve been known to threaten people who claimed that family names didn’t exist in Spain before the 10th century with throwing the Annals of Navarre at them… (the old version of my family’s lastname appears in documents older than that and you can follow the process by which the current version came to be).