Post-nominal letters indicate that the individual holds a position, educational degree, accreditation, office, or honor (e.g. "PhD", "CCNA", "OBE").
These include bachelor's degrees (AB, BA, BS, BE, BFA, BTech, LLB, BSc, etc.
), master's degrees (MA, MS, MFA, LLM, MLA, MBA, MSc, MEng etc.
In the United States, the suffix is the preferred format (thus allowing differentiation between types of doctorate) in written documentation.
In the United Kingdom, it is largely obsolete but occasionally used by untitled males in social and business contexts.
British physiotherapists prefer to use MCSP or SRP to denote membership to professional bodies.
Officers and enlisted in the United States Military will add an abbreviation of the service frequently to disambiguate seniority, and reserve status.
Equally, a Viatorian priest uses the suffix "CSV" from the name of his religious institute, Clerici Santi Viatori (Clerics of Saint Viator).
A generational suffix can be used informally (for disambiguation purposes or as nicknames) and is often incorporated in legal documents.
In the United States the most common name suffixes are senior and junior, which are abbreviated as Sr. and Jr. with initial capital letters, with or without preceding commas.
Roman numeral suffixes can be used to name a child after another family member like an uncle, cousin, or ancestor (including grandfather or great-grandfather).
Etiquette expert and humorist Judith Martin, for example, believes they should all move up[7] (as Sr. and subsequent suffixes can be redistributed), but most agree that this is up to the individual families.
The title Jr. is sometimes used in legal documents, particularly those pertaining to wills and estates, to distinguish among female family members of the same name.
Widows are conventionally entitled to retain their late husband's full names and suffixes, but divorcées do not continue to style themselves with a former husband's full name and suffix even if they retain the surname.
In the United Kingdom, the suffixes "Snr" and "Jnr" are rare, and not usually considered part of a person's name as such.
Ordinal suffixes such as "III" are generally reserved for monarchs; however, the General Register Office has stated that, whereas it would normally reject a string of symbols or letters that "has no intrinsic sense of being a name" when registering a child, a suffix such as "III" would be accepted.
[11] Those who inherit a title of nobility do not use ordinal suffixes, but are distinguished from any ancestors with the same name by their position in the order of succession; for example Arthur Wellesley, 2nd Duke of Wellington, is thus distinguished from his father, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.
In Portuguese, common designations are Júnior (junior), Filho (son), Neto (grandson), Bisneto (great-grandson), and Sobrinho (nephew).
In Irish, óg (young), sometimes anglicised as "oge", may be used to distinguish two related people who might otherwise have the same name.