mononym

American  

[mon-uh-nim] / ˈmɒn ə nɪm /

noun

1. the name of a person who has or is known by only one name, usually a given name without a surname.

   Bajans know her as Robyn Fenty, but she is known in the rest of the world by her mononym, Rihanna.

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mononym British  

/ ˈmɒnəʊˌnɪm /

noun

1. a person who is famous enough to be known only by one name, usually the first name

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Other Word Forms

• mononymic adjective
• mononymous adjective

Etymology

Origin of mononym

First recorded in 1880–85 as a technical term in the biological and medical sciences; mono- ( def. ) + -onym ( def. )

Example Sentences

Increasingly, he found the concept of a mononym enticing.

From Los Angeles Times

While pursuing her art in Europe as a young woman, she shed her full name and adopted the mononym Bettina.

From New York Times

To distance herself from that perpetration and the identity she had formed from it, Ensler chose to go by the mononym V. As she explains in her new book, “V is my freedom name.”

From Washington Post

“I was named after my dad, Robert James Flynn. My last name was my nickname, which turned into my stage name. I legally became Flynn about six years ago,” he says about his mononym.

From Seattle Times

The film brings a more human understanding of a figure so noteworthy he has earned mononym status for the title.

From Washington Post