On English Wikipedia (en.WP), surname page – Foo (surname) – should have a brief lead section that describes the etymological and (when applicable) the pronunciational history of the surname. This can be a single sentence, as in the example, Cross (surname). If this lead is absent, consider doing a little research in Wiktionary, etc. to improve the surname page's opening.

Place {{Surname}} at the bottom of surname pages. Do not use this template on those disambiguation pages which contain a list of people by family name as well as the more usual types of other entries. Instead, categorize the disambiguation page by including the surname parameter with the {{Disambiguation}} template. For example, {{Disambiguation|surname}}. This will include the disambiguation page in Category:Surnames.

If the page title is not the surname itself, add the surname as the first parameter. For example, Lee (surname) uses {{Surname|Lee}}. However, this parameter is for display purposes only. {{DEFAULTSORT}} controls sorting of all categories for consistency.

Category:Surnames automatically includes all articles that have this template. Any surname language categories should immediately follow {{Surname}} at the bottom of surname pages, after you have verified them via reliable sources.

Category:Surname template has extra parameters includes any template instances with too many or obsolete parameters. This maintenance category should ideally be empty, so correct any pages that appear in that category.

If it's just for a section, you can say so: {{Surname|section=y|Lee}} Doing so will change the wording to say "this section" instead of "this article", and will also suppress the automatic generation of {{Short description|Surname list}}. If an article is a general article on a surname, that happens to contain a section with a list of people bearing the surname, it should instead have a manually added description at the top of the page, e.g. {{Short description|Elbonian surname}}.

Place {{Surname}} at the bottom of surname pages. Do not use this template on disambiguation pages that contain other entries besides a list of people by family name. Instead categorize the disambiguation page by including the surname parameter with the {{Disambiguation}} template. For example, {{Disambiguation|surname}}. This will include the disambiguation page in Category:Surnames.

Template parameters[Edit template data]

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Surname (override)	1	The surname(s) this page is about, if not included in the page title Default Default is to infer from the page title.	Content	suggested
Category	2	By default, this rcat will populate [[Category:Surname]]. That can be suppressed using "nocat" in this unnamed parameter. Default Add category:Surnames.	String	optional
Section only?	section	If set to any content, this template applies only to the section in which it is placed, and will say so. Default Template applies to whole page.	String	optional

• Wikipedia:Name pages – How-to guide for articles about surnames and given names
• {{Given name}} – For given name pages or sections of disambiguation pages that list people by given names. Can also be used for pages with both given names and surnames
• {{Hndis}} – For disambiguation pages that list articles associated with the same personal name
• {{Nickname}} – For nickname pages or sections of disambiguation pages that list people by nicknames
• {{R from surname}} – To add to redirects instead of {{Surname}}
• {{Surname links}} – For help searching for articles related to a surname
• {{Family name}} – a redirect to {{Infobox name}}