Family Vocabulary in English: The Words for the People in Your Life

The people in your life come up in almost every conversation: who you live with, who you are visiting this weekend, who just called during dinner. English has a precise word for nearly every branch of a family tree, plus a warm set of informal terms and a few differences between American and British usage. This guide maps out the whole family, along with the words for partners and friends, American English first, and explains how the pieces fit together so the words actually stick.

Mom, mum, and the many names for parents

The single most famous American-British difference in the family is small but everywhere: Americans write and say mom, while the British say mum. Both are the affectionate word for your mother. Luckily, dad (for your father) is the same on both sides.

English also has a ladder of formality for parents:

• Small children say mommy and daddy.
• Most people say mom and dad in everyday life.
• Mother and father are more formal, used in writing or serious moments.
• Informally, Americans call their parents their folks ("I'm visiting my folks this weekend").

Your immediate family

Your closest relatives are your immediate family:

• Your parents are your mom and dad.
• Your siblings are your brothers and sisters. "Sibling" is the handy word that covers both without saying which.
• If you marry, your spouse is your husband (a man) or your wife (a woman).
• Your children are your kids: a son (a boy) and a daughter (a girl).

The extended family

Beyond that inner circle is your extended family, and here the words follow a clear logic:

• Your parents' parents are your grandparents: grandpa (or grandfather) and grandma (grandmother). To them, you are a grandchild, and all the grandchildren together are the grandkids.
• Your parent's brother is your uncle; your parent's sister is your aunt (you will hear it said both "ant" and "ahnt").
• Your aunt and uncle's children are your cousins.
• Later, when you have brothers and sisters with children of their own, their kids are your niece (a girl) and nephew (a boy).

A simple way to picture it: go up for grandparents, sideways for aunts, uncles, and cousins, and down for nieces and nephews.

In-laws and step-family

Two kinds of relatives come not from birth but from marriage and remarriage:

• When you marry, your spouse's family becomes your in-laws: your mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and so on.
• If a parent remarries, their new spouse becomes your stepmother (stepmom) or stepfather (stepdad), and that person's existing children become your stepbrothers and stepsisters.
• If your parent and stepparent then have a child together, that child is your half-brother or half-sister, because you share one parent, not both.

The quick rule: step means related through marriage with no shared blood, while half means you share exactly one parent.

Partners and relationships

Before and outside of marriage, English has its own set of words:

• When two people are romantically involved, they are dating, or "going out."
• A boyfriend or girlfriend is a romantic partner. For a relationship of any kind, many Americans prefer the neutral partner or significant other (sometimes shortened to "S.O.").
• When a couple decides to marry, they get engaged, and each becomes the other's fiancé (a man) or fiancée (a woman). The two words sound the same; only the spelling changes.
• Once married, they are each other's spouse. And a former partner is an ex ("my ex-girlfriend," or simply "my ex").

Friends and the people around you

Not everyone close to you is family:

• A friend is someone you like and choose to spend time with; your best friend is the closest of all.
• An acquaintance is someone you know a little, but not well, like a friend of a friend.
• The people who live next to you are your neighbors, and the person you share an apartment with is your roommate.

Putting it all together

With these words you can introduce anyone in your life: your mom and dad, your siblings, your grandparents, the aunts, uncles, and cousins at a family reunion, the in-laws you gained by marriage, your significant other, and your closest friends. Keep the one big British twin in mind (mum for mom), and you are ready to talk about the people who matter most. Since so many families gather in one room to cook and talk, our guide to what's in a kitchen is a natural next read.

Want these words to come out automatically? The collection below turns every term in this article into flashcards and quick quizzes, so the words for the people in your life are always ready.