These distinctive titles replace the standard honorifics used in polite address, indicating gender and, for women, marital status; the common English forms are Mr., Ms., Mrs. and Miss. These honorifics are not normally considered as titles.
Pre-nominal academic degrees in German-speaking countries include: Dipl.-Ing. (Master's degree in engineering), Dipl.-Kfm. (master's degree in management), Dipl.-Phys. (master's degree in physics), Dipl.-Inf. or Dipl.-Inform. (master's degree in computer science), Dr.-Ing. (German doctorate in engineering), Dr. med. (German doctorate in Medicine) and Mag. (Austrian master's degree (Magister) in all disciplines except engineering).
Pursuant to the Bologna process, most of these pre-nominal degrees will be replaced by post-nominal bachelor's and master's degrees; but people who held academic degrees before the Bologna process may continue to use the pre-nominal academic degrees. In contexts where pre-nominal academic letters are used, such degrees may be placed prenominally for consistency (for example, "MMathPhil Marcos Cramer").[2]
In the Czech Republic, all academic degrees are widely used before the name: Bc. – for Bachelor, Mgr. – for Master, Ing. – for Engineer, "lesser" doctors such as MUDr. (doctor of medicine), MDDr. (dentist doctor), JUDr. (doctor of Law), RNDr. (doctor of Natural Sciences), PhDr. (doctor of Philosophy), ThDr. (doctor of Theology). Before them appear titles given to university teachers (prof. for Professor and doc. for "docent" = Associated Professor). These degrees could be combined, with the highest degree appearing first, e. g. prof. JUDr. Ing. Bc. The titles of the same rank are separated by "et", e. g. Mgr. et Mgr.[3][4] Army titles include gen. for General, plk. for Colonel; Church titles include P. (pater) and R.D. (Reverendissimus Dominus).
In Finland, abbreviated academic titles can appear before or after the name (for example, FM Matti Meikäläinen or Matti Meikäläinen, FM). In the United States a person may at their discretion use "Dr." as a pre-nominal or their doctoral degree's initials as a post-nominal, but rarely at the same time. It would also be very unusual to see a professional license (such as for an engineer) used as a pre-nominal in any form.
In Portugal and the other Portuguese-speaking countries, it is usual for a person with a university degree to be generally referred by the abbreviated pre-nominal title dr. (doutor), independently of the real degree that he or she holds. The main exceptions to this are the holders of degrees in engineering and architecture, who are referred respectively by the pre-nominal abbreviated titles eng. (engenheiro) and arq. (arquiteto).