List of post-nominal letters: Encyclopedia II - List of post-nominal letters - The United Kingdom

List of post-nominal letters - The United Kingdom

Notes:

[1] The letters "PC" are used only by peers. For other Privy Counsellors, "Rt. Hon." before the name suffices. The distinction is caused because peers may already hold the title "Rt. Hon." while not being a Privy Counsellor, while the same cannot be said of commoners.

[2] Esquire (or Esq. as a suffix) is now commonly used in the UK in place of the prefix Mr. in formal address, according to the "Dictionary of Genealogy" it has no real meaning. In the US it is considered in many places only to be used for lawyers.

[3] The exact post-nominal for university degrees varies based on the faculty in which the degree was obtained.

[4] There are too many religious orders, learned societies, royal academies, and professional institutions to be listed. One example is provided in each case; the format shown should be followed for other organizations, except that the initials of the organization should be substituted.

[5] "Member of Parliament" is used in the UK and other Commonwealth nations to describe members of the lower house of Parliament only. In the UK, members of the House of Commons are described Members of Parliament, but members of the House of Lords are not.

[6] In the Armed Forces, two or more branches may have officers with the same or similar titles, such as "Captain," which is a position in the Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force, and Royal Marines. To differentiate between the branches, post-nominals such as "RN" are used. However, such post-nominals are not used for the higher positions, since the higher officers are differently-titled in each branch.

[7] "RN" or "RNR" is used for officers with the rank of Captain or below.

[8] In the Army, the initials of the regiment or corps of the officer are used as post-nominals.

[9] "RAF" or "RAFVR" technically should be used for officers with the rank of Air Chief Marshal and below, though, in practice, it is used for officers with the rank of Wing Commander and below.

[10] When listing the honours and awards enjoyed by any person it is customary to include the Order of St John, but this is a Royal Order and not a State Order, and so confers no precedence. The statutes of the order state (statute 32(2)) The letters specified … may be used … but admission or promotion to any Grade of the Order … shall not confer any rank, style, title, dignity, appellation or social precedence whatsoever.

The Grades of the Order of St John are:

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The United Kingdom", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki