One of them, usually the first, is used in daily life while the others are solely for official documents, such as birth, marriage, or death certificates.
Common names of this type are Ion or Andrei for males and Maria or Elena for females.
Given names with a Christian lineage have an identifiable English equivalent: Andrei (Andrew), Constantin (Constantine), Cristian (Christian), Daniel/Dan (Daniel/Dan), Gheorghe/George (George), Grigore (Gregory), Ilie (Elijah), Ion/Ioan (John), Iacob (Jacob/James), Iosif (Joseph), Laurențiu (Lawrence), Luca (Luke), Marcu (Mark), Matei (Matthew), Mihail/Mihai (Michael), Nicolae/Niculaie (Nicholas), Pavel/Paul (Paul), Petru/Petre (Peter), Ștefan (Stephen), Vasile (Basil).
Maria has led to many closely related names such as Mariana, Marioara, Maricica, Maricela, Măriuca, Mara, Marina, Marilena, Marieta, Marinela, Marisa, Marița, Marusia, Mia, Mioara.
Adopting Classical Roman names with a difficult equivalence in Hungarian was a method of Romanian nationalist resistance.
Some names are inspired from nature, such as Sorin/Sorina (soare, "sun"), Codruț/Codruța or Codrin/Codrina (codru, "woods"), or flowers: Crin/Crina, Narcis/Narcisa, Viorel/Viorica, Anemona, Brândușa, Camelia, Iolanda, Lăcrămioara etc.
[5] [5] Examples of Slavic names in Romanian, or names introduced from the surrounding Slavic areas, include[6][5] Bogdan, Dragoș, Mircea, Radu, Tihomir, Vlad, Vladislav, Vladimir, Miroslav, Casimir, Anastasia, Irina, Milena, Olga, Raisa.
As an example, few children born since 1980 would bear the names of Gheorghe, Vasile, or Ilie, which are generally associated with the idea of an elderly man (while the name of Gheorghe is rare among the younger generation, the variant George is more common).
[11] Romanian male given names end in a consonant (Adrian, Ion, Paul, Ștefan, Victor) or in any vowel other than -a (Alexandru, Andrei, Mihai), with some exceptions (Mircea, Mihnea), while almost all female names end in -a (Ana, Elena, Ioana, Maria), with only very few exceptions such as Carmen.
This is most easily seen in the male-female name pairs: Gabriel-Gabriela, Ioan-Ioana, George-Georgiana, Mihai-Mihaela, Nicolae-Nicoleta, etc.
The law however is flexible, allowing for the couple to choose their family name, and thus the surname they would use for all their children.
Historically, when the family name reform was introduced in the mid-19th century, the default was to use a patronym, or a matronym when the father was dead or unknown.
They may indicate a country or ethnic origin (e.g. Grecu - from Greece, Ungureanu - from Hungary, Rusu - from Russia, Sârbu - from Serbia, Turcu - from Turkey).
There are also descriptive family names derived from occupations or nicknames, e.g. Ciobanu ("shepherd"), Păcuraru ("pitch-maker", "pitch-vendor"), Croitoru ("tailor"), Fieraru ("smith"), Moraru ("miller"), Bălan ("blond"), Țăranu ("peasant") etc.
Also some Romanian surnames come from various animals and plants, most probably being former nicknames, with or without the addition of various suffixes, e.g. Bourean(u) ("ox"), Căpreanu ("goat"), Jderoiu ("marten"), Lupu ("wolf"), Ursu ("bear"), Zimbrean ("bison"), Vidraru ("otter").
[20] Currently, multiple given names have to be separated by a hyphen symbol ("-") on birth certificates and other civil status documents.
Because of this practice, the Romanian ID document ("Carte de Identitate"/"Buletin") and the Romanian passport typically use the same naming convention, although the law covers birth certificates and civil status documents only.
Citizens that have been born overseas may be allowed to use their names as recorded in the original foreign document.