St or St. or St-

As it is short for saint I would imagine the correct spelling would be St. I know for mailing purposes the period is often missed but it is pronounced Saint. I have always used St.

I think it depends on the style manual you are using, and I would say that as long as you are consistent it doesn’t matter.

St.

Hi It also depends what language you decide to use. In English the proper way would be St.
In French the proper way is St-
Guy

St.

In English the proper way to shorten a word is to use a period. Therefore ’Saint’ would be shortened to ‘St.’. This is not the case when writing in French.

My family has followed this format logic. My fsyjef used both a period and a hyphen. My mother and sister use ‘St.’. My brother I think uses a period or just a space.

When I joined the military I used a hyphen for my name tags thinking that since my last name is French the proper way to spell it must be with a hyphen. I don’t complain since some databases get screwed up when you used a period or a hyphen and do most people entered it as a space.

And don’t get me started on the proper way to alphabetize it. I’ve gotten tired of correcting people who don’t understand that you use the full name when alphabetically sorting names. St-Jean comes before Sampson for example because it’s not ‘St’ but rather ‘Saint’.

I think "St." is the most common usage.

En français : l'Office québécois de la langue française dit ceci :
Abréviation de l'adjectif saint

L'adjectif saint, sainte s'écrit en toutes lettres dans les noms géographiques. En cas de nécessité absolue, son abréviation (St, Ste ou St, Ste) est tolérée dans les noms de voies de communication. Dans les patronymes (noms de famille), le mot Saint ou Sainte ne s'abrège que si l'abréviation figure bien dans la graphie officielle du patronyme (c'est-à-dire celle qui est consignée dans les registres de l'état civil); en principe, ou si on ne connaît pas la graphie officielle du nom de la personne en question, ces mots s'écrivent en toutes lettres.

En français or in English?
In French, the good way is Saint-, but of course we do use a lot St-

Hi!
I believe just a plain St Raymond would fo the trick.
I have 4 friends that has St and all diferent
St, ST, St- stjohn
Byby
Alain
fortinalain52@hotmail.com

Ste .....for ladies

My entire immediate family (grand parents and their siblings on down) uses St with a period for St. Cyr. The family has been in the US since late 19th century.

the proper way in french is Saint-Louis

Language aside- You spell it the way the family does. Period.

They are traditional ways to spell it depending on language, however many families change that over generations for whatever reasons.

I have a friend who spells her last name with a dash- but that’s because her father changed it- it used to be a dot.

So I think it simply depends on the individual.

Selon le Bureau de la traduction du Gouvernement canadien :
1.1.22 Saint, sainte
Il faut, autant que possible, ne pas abréger cet adjectif, qu’il désigne une personne sainte (p. ex. saint Thomas) ou qu’il fasse partie d’un nom de famille, d’un nom géographique, d’un nom de voie de communication, etc.

S’il est nécessaire de le faire, par manque d’espace notamment, on utilise les abréviations St, Ste, Sts, Stes (ou Sᵗ, Ste, Sts, Stes), avec trait d’union :

Mme St-Martin
M. St-Laurent
St-Victor
Ste-Scholastique

I always use St (no full stop) for a family name, or city name., I only use Saint if it is for an actual Saint or Sainte, e.g. Saint Christopher. Although I would not disagree with Mireille Tremblay above.

Hi Raymond. I think it depends on what country you are talking about and in some cases which province. In Québec, the convention is to use a hyphen as per link attached.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_in_Quebec

In Ontario, there is only one town and it uses a period as per copy: St. Marys

It may also be a family choice. The ‘Saints’ I know use St.

The proper way to write it, in french is St-

Written differently, for a surname, it's a mistake. Look here at the BDL web page for more information.

http://bdl.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?id=2668
http://bdl.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?id=1112

Bonjour Raymond,

Both are acceptable : you can write Saint-Louis or St-Louis.

I have always seen it as St. Croix or St. Dennis, etc.

If it is a place then Saint John, New Brunswick, or St. Johns, Newfoundland. You can verify places using Canada Post.

In French the rule is Saint-. However some families I know have purportedly abridged their name to St-.

SVP ecrivez : Saint ou Sainte.; les abréviations sont tolérer mais en recherche SVP écrire le mot au complet..

I live in Sault Ste. Marie. As a place name it has only one spelling for Ste. In english I use St. and in french St-. But as someone mentioned spell it the way others spell it to be consistent with history and tradition.

En français nous écrivons : St-...

I live in a town called Saint Adolphe, so I have been accustomed to spell it "St." when I am using the short version for Saint. On some online forms, I have come across a situation where they won't allow the period to be used, in which case it is just "St" . Keep in mind that for very staunch French Towns they like to spell it "Ste" for Saint. I would say that "St." to show the abbreviation of a shortened word is in my opinion the way to go!

In the past 15 or 20 years while doing genealogy I noticed that the numeric symbol after abbreviations in location names seemed to have been dropped for the most part. I stopped using them also, but is it ''right'' or ''wrong''? I don't know the answer to that.

I am referring to towns that have female names such as Ste. Agathe, or Ste. Elizabeth.