Forum: ell.stackexchange.com
Tags: <adjectives><subject-verb-agreement><possessives>
Title: Should we say "what are your name?" not "what is your name?"?
Question: My student today asked me why we say "what  is  your name?" instead of "what  are  your name?".  I think we should say "what  are  your name?" since your/her takes "are"!   Please explain. Thank you in advance.

Answers:
sents: text: since your/her takes are!!!!
text: I think this is an example of students having learned some "rules" by heart which aren't rules.
text: Your is the possessive of you, and you can be singular or plural.
text: The main point is that the subject of the verb is name , or if you address multiple people, names If you are addressing a single person, you can say: What is your name ?
text: If you are asking a group of people to give their name s , you ask: What are your names ?
text: But the conclusion that "your" takes "are" is absurdly and wrongly oversimplified.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/2992/oerkelens
score: 15
sents: text: "Who are you?
text: " would be correct, because "you" is the subject of the sentence.
text: But "What is your name?" is different: "Name" is the subject of that sentence.
text: It is modified by the adjective "your", but that doesn't change the subject.
text: Because of that, your student is correct.
text: The sentence you mentioned is talking about the person's name, not the actual person.
text: That's what makes the difference.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/4234/The Spooniest
score: 10
sents: text: No.
text: "What IS your name?" is correct.
text: The subject of the sentence is not "you", but "name".
text: "Name" is singular.
text: A common error in English is to confuse the subject of the sentence with modifiers on that subject when selecting the appropriate verb.
text: For example: RIGHT: "The girl with the cats is here."
text: WRONG: "
text: The girl with the cats are here."
text: "Cats" is plural, so if "cats" was the subject of the sentence, the correct verb would be "are".
text: But "cats" is not the subject of the sentence.
text: The subject is "girl", which is singular.
text: So the correct verb is "is".
text: Similar thing here.
text: "Your" is not the subject of the sentence.
text: It is an adjective modifying "name".
text: This case is a little easier than my example because "your" is an adjective, not a noun, and so can never be the subject of a sentence.
text: (Unless you are talking about the word itself.)
text: You might say "You are ...", but you would never say "Your are ...".
text: It must always be "Your X is/are ...", where X is a noun.
text: (Or some more complex sentence, of course.)
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/803/Jay
score: 8
sents: text: After thinking it through, I think the best response of the teacher (you!)
text: for this particular student once he or she asked, I think we should say "what are your name?"
text: since your/her takes "are"! is probably, Because name takes "is" !
text: And if he or she looked confused, then you could add,
text: It's because name takes "is" , so you should say, "What is your name?" , or "What are your names?" .
text: If your course is about conversational English and it doesn't emphasize grammar, perhaps this is the best way to go, in my opinion.
text: There is no grammar terminology in the reply.
text: (Please note that I avoided even using the word "either" intentionally.)
text: My point is your reply should match your student .
text: It's obvious that this student understands the word take , and he or she could formulate questions and at least understand simple answers, and yet still couldn't tell which word is the main word of a phrase, indicating his or her unclear understanding on common English sentence structures.
text: However, if your course also includes grammar, then you can take it as a good opportunity to discuss with your student(s) the concept of singular vs. plural in English, and the possessive form of you (which is your ) and other pronouns, and how to find the main word in a noun phrase, and sentence structures in English, and so on.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/3281/Damkerng T.
score: 7
sents: text: I think it is correct to ask "What is your name?", and also correct to ask "What are your names?", depending on the way you are using it.
text: If you are asked what is your name, you are expected to reply with your name and your surname e.g Adelaja Adebisi, which is a compound name making it singular.
text: On the other hand, if asked what are your names, and you give your names as Adelaja Adebisi Tolulope, then, the Tolulope added to it makes it plural so it is correct.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/15699/user15699
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
It is correct to ask "What is your name?", and also correct to ask "What are your names?", depending on the way you are using it.  
What is your name?' is generally correct, you can also ask 'what are your names?'.