Can I ask 'what your name is?'

Question

Can I ask:

1. 'What your name is?'

instead of,

2. 'What is your name?'

Is #1 grammatically correct?

Answer 1

We cannot say:

• What your name is?

Let's see why. Maybe if we don't hear what somebody said, we can use an echo question:

• Your name is what?

Another name for this type of question is an in situ question. We use the word what to show which word we didn't hear, or which word we don't know. This is a question, but it uses the same word order as a normal sentence:

• Your name is Bob.

We usually don't make questions like this. We usually move the wh- word to the front of the sentence when we make a question:

• What blah blah blah blah?
• Who blah blah blah blah?
• Where blah blah blah blah?

If the wh- word needs to move to the front of the question, then we also need to change the order of some other words. We change the subject and the auxiliary verb. Let's look at the in situ question again to see what the subject and the auxiliary verb are:

• Your name is XXXX?

The auxiliary verb here is is. The verb BE is always an auxiliary verb, even when it is the only verb. In normal, canonical, sentences the subject is the noun phrase before the auxiliary. Here the subject is your name.

If we want to make the question with what at the beginning of the question, then we need to invert, to change round, the subject and the auxiliary like this:

• What [is] [your name]?
• What is your name?

If we do not invert the subject and the auxiliary, the sentence is ungrammatical:

• *What your name is? (wrong).

Note that the order of the phrases in the sentence is:

• What (complement), is (verb), your name (subject)

Hope this is helpful!

Answer 2

I don't think it's grammatically correct, because I have never seen anybody to ask someone's name by saying like this. What is your name?

In my opinion, it's breaking grammar rule of interrogative sentences, because we have to put verb 'to be' (is, am, are) after the interrogative words (What, Who, Where, How, etc.)

Answer 3

No matter what tense is in question, the form of English question is always the same:

AUXILIARY VERB + NOUN + MAIN VERB

(does          +  she  + work)

Question words come at the beginning and the DO NOT change the form of the question or its word order.

When there is a verb BE which usually consists of one word, then we move it to the place of auxiliary verb and the form then looks

VERB + NOUN

(is  + she ) OK/fine/nice/happy/...

So, "what your name is" is incorrect because its form is "question word + noun + main verb"

To respect the rule you have to ask

what + is + your + name

Now, the construction "what your name is" exists and we use it in the indirect question. For example,

Can you tell me...  
I wonder...  
May I know...  
I would like to know...  

*...what your name is*?

Answer 4

What your name is? is ungrammatical. You must say What is your name?

The reason you cannot say What your name is? is because that word order makes the listener hear what as a relative pronoun. A listener hears What your name is? not as a question, but as a fragment of a sentence like this one:

I know what your name is.

In this sentence, the word what functions as a relative pronoun: it makes what your name is into the object of know. The interrogative pronouns what, who, whom, whose, what, where, and when can also function as relative pronouns. The word order tells the listener which role the interrogative/relative pronoun is playing.

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Here are some examples to illustrate how the word order changes (or stays the same) when you switch between declarative statement, relative clause, and question:

1. Your name is Jamius. / I know what your name is. / What is your name?

2. Terry is ready now. / I see who is ready now. / Who is ready now?

In line 1, the word order reverses to form a question, because what stands for a subject-complement or object. In line 2, the word order is the same in all three sentences because who stands for the subject.

3. Whose name is Jamius?

In line 3, the question's word order is the same as the declarative sentence, since Whose name corresponds to the subject of the declarative sentence.

There are some other important things to know about English questions, like what to do with auxiliary verbs, the need to add an auxiliary verb (usually do) when the verb is anything other than be, and the fact that you can use the word order of a declarative sentence to make a question express surprise or emphasis (for example, Your name is WHAT??). But the above explains why What your name is? doesn't work as a question in English.