See also Postnominal Honours in Order of Precedence
Have you ever seen someone’s name with a string of letters/abbreviations after it and wondered what they meant? Most people recognize that MD stands for Medical Doctor and CPA means Certified Public Accountant. Those are called post-nominals and consist of abbreviations or initials to indicate that the individual holds a position, office or honour.
Post-nominals are written without periods. If a person has more than one, a comma is inserted between them. When there are several post-nominals after someone’s name, honours are listed first in descending order of precedence, followed by degrees and memberships of learned societies in ascending order.
The list below is in alphabetical order to make it easier to find the information you seek.
Postnominals Part 1 Part 2
Orders and Decorations | Post-nominal Awarded | |
| since Oct 1992 | before Oct 1992 | |
| Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order | LVO | LVO |
| Member of the Order of the British Empire 2 | MBE | |
| Military Cross 2 | MC | |
| Medal for Gallantry | MG | MG |
| Military Medal 2 | MM | |
| Member of the Royal Victorian Order | MVO | MVO |
| Nursing Service Cross (Australia) 5 | NSC | NSC |
| Medal of the Order of Australia | OAM | OAM |
| Officer of the Order of the British Empire 2 | OBE | |
| Order of Merit | OM | OM |
| Public Service Medal (Australia) | PSM | PSM |
| Queen’s Fire Service Medal for Gallantry 2 | QFSM | |
| Queen’s Fire Service Medal for Distinguished Service 2 | QFSM | |
| Queen’s Gallantry Medal 2 | QGM | |
| Queen’s Police Medal for Gallantry 2 | QPM | |
| Queen’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service 2 | QPM | |
| Reserve Force Decoration | RFD | RFD |
| Royal Red Cross (1st Class, Member) 2, 5 | RRC | |
| Royal Victorian Medal | RVM | RVM |
| Star of Courage (Australia) | SC | SC |
| Star of Gallantry 5 | SG | SG |
| Sea Gallantry Medal 2 | SGM | |
| Victoria Cross and Victoria Cross for Australia 1 | VC | VC |
| Order of St John 3 | Varies | |
| Knight Bachelor 2 (confers title of “Sir” / “Dame”) | no postnominals | |
| Please see previous page for the first part of the Postnominals | ||
Legislators
| Member of the Australian House of Representatives | MP |
| Member of the Legislative Assembly | MLA |
| Member of the Legislative Council | MLC |
| Member of the House of Assembly (Tasmania) | MHA |
Legal Positions
| Queen’s Counsel | QC |
| Senior Counsel | SC |
| Justice of the Peace | JP |
| Special Justice (South Australia) | SJ |
Vice Regal Appointments
| Aide-de-Camp to the Governor-General or State Governor | ADC |
Notes:
1 Refers to both the Imperial Victoria Cross and the Victoria Cross for Australia. Awarding of the
Imperial Victoria Cross to Australian citizens ended when the Victoria Cross for Australia was
created as part of the Australian Honours System in 1991. The Australian Victoria Cross has yet
to be awarded. There have been 96 Australians awarded the Victoria Cross.
2 These are Imperial awards. All Imperial awards made to Australian citizens after 5 October 1992 are
classed as foreign awards, and hence such Australian citizens are not entitled to use the associated
post-nominal letters. However, those presented with these awards before that date are still permitted
to use the post-nominal letters.
3 Postnominals within the Order of St John are not recognised as notified in the Governor-General’s
media release of 14 August 1982.
4 Provision for further awards at the Knight & Dame level within the Order of Australia was removed by
Her Majesty The Queen on 3 March 1986 on the advice of the Prime Minister. Those who have been
awarded this rank are still permitted to use the title and the post-nominal letters.
5 In the period 1975-1991, for Australian citizens and ADF personnel, a number of Imperial awards were
replaced by Australian awards. See charts below:
For Citizens
| Date | Imperial award | Australian award | ||
| 1975 | GC | George Cross | CV | Cross of Valour (Australia) |
| 18 Oct 1989 | RRC & ARRC | Royal Red Cross | NSC | Nursing Service Cross (Australia) |
For ADF Personnel
| Date | Imperial award | Australian award | ||
| 15 Jan 1991 | DCM | Distinguished Conduct Medal | SG | Star of Gallantry |
| CGM | Conspicuous Gallantry Medal | |||
| DSO | Distinguished Service Order | |||
| 1991 | DSC | Distinguished Service Cross (UK) | DSC | Distinguished Service Cross (Australia) |
| 1991 | DSM | Distinguished Service Medal (UK) | DSM | Distinguished Service Medal (Australia) |
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia article postnominal.
For more information visit the Australian government website http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/
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