The foaf:firstName property is provided (alongside foaf:lastName) as a mechanism to support legacy data that cannot be easily interpreted in terms of the (otherwise preferred) foaf:familyName and foaf:givenName properties. The concepts of 'first' and 'last' names do not work well across cultural and linguistic boundaries; however they are widely used in addressbooks and databases.

See the issue tracker for design discussions, status and ongoing work on rationalising the FOAF naming machinery.

There is also a simple foaf:name property.