In New Zealand, and perhaps other British-English speaking countries, we say "Christian name" for a person's personal name and "surname" for their family name. These days "first name" is more often used than "Christian name", for reasons of religious and cultural diversity.

What I can't figure out is why the first name was *ever* described as the Christian name. What does religion have to do with it?

The only Christian/first name connection I can think of is how monks and nuns used to take a new first name, usually of a saint or similar, to represent starting a new life in God. Maybe they still do this, I don't know. But even historically, this would have been a small proportion of the population, and everybody *else* still had a first name too.

Brunnen-"going nuts trying to work out the reason for something I didn't even care about before I suddenly thought of it"G