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Née

A borrowed word from French that literally means "born". Née (feminine) and Né (masculine) are used to indicate the birth surname of an individual. That is, most commonly the surname of a woman's father that was used on her birth records. This due to the woman often losing that family name after marriage when taking on the surname of her husband. The use of née has been most popularized by funeral parlors creating death notices for newspapers as a way to inform of the maiden name of wife when she dies.

As you might expect, we more often than not see surname changes in our lines in the last 150 years. Often using the mother's maiden taken on by the family. Hence, you may see our use of the uncommon form né to help indicate that a male was born with a different surname than they were known by. Most often appearing as né Hoar, né Horr, né Hoare or similar after an otherwise full name.