(Lacking definition, it could theoretically be claimed by almost anyone though.) Today, the title is used by attorneys, some diplomats, and at least one fraternal order. In colonial America the latter was the dominant form, and it came to be applied mainly to current or former justices. At the time America was being settled, Esquire was a poorly defined honorific used to designate elder sons of knights and certain elder sons of peers (esquires by birth) and justices and certain other office holders (esquires by office). Suffixes of Social StatusĮsquire (Esq), Gentleman (Gent.), and Yeoman are the most commonly encountered suffixes indicating social status.Įsquire originated as a social rank below Knight (it comes from the word squire). It’s good to get into the habit when dealing with abstracted records of checking indices for “cooper”, “smith”, “carpenter”, “clerk”, and so on just in case the abstractor misunderstood the name. For instance, John Hendrick Smith and James Hendrick Cooper might be Hendrick brothers with different occupations. The use of occupation as a suffix can cause confusion, as clerks who recorded documents and events often omitted the comma between the surname and the occupation. (See the separate paper on the use of middle names.) Although they did not become truly common until well into the 19 th century, they served the purpose of differentiating individuals. During the colonial period, middle names were quite rare. Middle names became a permanent way of distinguishing between persons with the same first and last name. These descriptive adjectives gradually fell out of favor as middle names began to be used.