Template talk:Conventions/Type of name

Primary Display Name (PDN) [20 March 2017]

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Should page titles always be the same as the PDN? [6 May 2017]

[from email exchange] - The given name and surname cards mention only name at birth, and the rationale Help:Conventions/Given name says that it is so that the page title is created correctly. Help:Conventions/Name row says that an “adopted” name can be used as the primary name.

It appears to me that your intent is that you always want the page title to reflect the birth name even if the primary name is different. The example (Kenneth Cayford Chapman) looks like this. However, the person page title is hardly used in WeRelate. It shows up as the page title when you have the page open, and is used to group pages into facets by letter of the alphabet (which I think is a bit bizarre), and it is the text used in a link. I think that is it. It is not used for sorting search results nor in the actual search. It is not used in the list of children in a family. It is not used in a family tree or in FTE. So I wonder why the focus on making sure the page title is the name at birth if the primary name is not.

I have to say, that when I see a page title that is different from the primary name, my initial reaction is that I have 2 different versions of the truth and I don’t know which one to trust. Heaven knows we have enough of that in WeRelate that is unintentional (correction to the name in the name row but not to the page title). Even though I understand perfectly well that a person can have more than one name, my initial reaction is dissonance and wariness about the accuracy of the page information. (My day job is all about providing a single source of the truth – the standard wisdom is that 2 different versions of a fact means that neither version is trusted.)

My preference would be to allow the primary name exception (for adopted names) and have the page title match it – that is, allow the contributor to use the adopted primary name when creating the page. - DataAnalyst, 26 Feb 2017

Yes. It was my intent to specify that page title should always be the same as birth name, hence the emphasis on entering birth name only when creating a new page. To be honest, I thought this had been established as a rule long ago. I could be wrong about that. To me, it does seem logical that the title would be the first name issued to the person. I pause as well whenever I come across a page where the PDN and the page title are different, but for me it is only to see if a mistake has been made that needs correcting. If there is a clear explanation on the page, and the birth name is entered in one of the rows, I am fine with that. Maybe that would be one case where I could see using a name other than a birth name as a page title - when an adopted name is known, but the birth name is not.

Search does ignore page title when sorting, but I think that is only because Dallan has tweaked it to do so. Normal wiki page sort does use page title (ex. Categories) - but I am with you in that page sort doesn't factor into this decision.

If the community wants to say that page title does not have to be the same as birth name, I guess that is ok, as long as we can get some feedback on these questions:

• Is there value in keeping the biological family name in the title?
• Can we think of any reason why this might cause problems down the road?
• Would we be proposing that the page title should always be the same as the PDN, and if so, how will we monitor that?

--cos1776 21:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, WeRelate software has evolved to the point where person page title is just a way of ensuring that every page has a unique identity in the wiki. My impression is that person page title was originally used as the primary display name (as it is for the family page). If so, then the original convention (that it be the birth name) was really meant to apply to the primary display name. Assuming that is true, then I believe that the original convention was that the primary display name should always be name at birth. Whether or not we want to stick to that convention is a separate conversation (below). However, it seems to me that it is unnecessarily complicated (and an instruction that few are likely to follow) to require that a page be created with the name at birth if the contributor plans on changing the primary display name to something else. I just can't see the value in requiring the page title to reflect a name other than the primary display name.

BTW: I think we should ask for search results and links to the family page to show the husband's and wife's primary display names, rather than the page title. Firstly, it would be consistent with the handling of the person primary display name, and secondly, it would often be of great assistance in determining at a glance whether you have found the right couple if the middle names were included.--DataAnalyst 21:57, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Should stage names be allowed as PDNs? [6 May 2017]

[from email exchange] - Also, I am not crazy about a stage name as primary name (unless it was a legal name change and became the family name in subsequent generations). I understand that for some, tracing the ancestry of a famous person is the whole point, so they want that famous name to appear front-and-center. While I don’t personally feel very strongly about this, if others in the community do feel strongly about it, I would tend to support those saying it is inappropriate – because what is a famous person to one person might (and should) be just another person in the family tree to another. - DataAnalyst, 26 Feb 2017

I think there is a misunderstanding going on concerning the importance of what is entered as a PDN. As long as the birth name is entered in one of the other rows, it shouldn't matter much. That was the point I was trying to make vs. saying that one name was a better choice than another. It really boils down to whatever the editors of the page collectively want to use as the PDN. I hadn't given much thought to those who want to highlight famous relations, but you are very likely correct that some might place value on that.

Personally, I try to defer to whatever name was used most often by the person while they were alive, out of respect for what we know to be their own preference. That is the essence of why I might choose to enter a stage name in the first row (same would apply to an informally adopted name). If there are others also researching the person who feel differently, it is certainly changeable. If a family member were to chime in and have intimate knowledge that the person was actually known more often by something else, that could also be accommodated. I don't understand why that would be inappropriate? --cos1776 21:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Conventions are useful:

• When there is conflict between editors who are not actively collaborating with each other, but simply updating a page that someone else has created.
• For those who want to enter pages "the correct way" to minimize the creation of extra work for someone else to fix.
• For those who find inconsistency to be a distraction - although this applies more to situations like standard date format or avoiding the use of all upper case names.

In other words, if the question has come up as to what is appropriate, it is good to have a convention to answer the question. As I said before, I don't have a strong preference for using or not using stage names, but I think it is worth having a convention (even if it is to give permission for the PDN to be something other than the name at birth) rather than leaving it up to individual editors to decide.

Now that I think about it, I use the anglicized versions of the German names given to my aunts and uncles at birth (in Canada), mostly because I use my family tree at family reunions, and those German names have not been used in my lifetime. So I'd have to say that I am not a stickler for the PDN being the name at birth, as long as it is not a married name.--DataAnalyst 22:26, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Immigrant name [21 March 2017]

[from email exchange] - ​Is this not commonly understood as a name a person adopts in a new country, to conform to the language better (e.g., Smith instead of Schmidt)? That is what I have always assumed it was (not just the name on a particular set of documents). If not Immigrant Name, what tag would you give this type of name? - DataAnalyst

I was trying to follow the wording that is currently in place (that mentions documents). I agree with your logic, but I also think it doesn't really matter if the "Immigrant Name" is the name used in the new country or the old country, as long as both are entered. So, for example, "John Smith" could be the "Primary Display Name" for a man born as "Johan Schmidt", if he went by "John Smith" for the majority of his life (or vice versa).

You might be thinking that, if it doesn't matter, why do we have different type classifications for name at all vs. calling everything in rows 2 and up simply an "Alternate name"? I have to say that I often wonder this myself. Perhaps someone once thought that we might want to find all persons with "Religious Name = Joseph" or "Immigrant Name = Schmidt", etc. I don't know the answer, so it might be worthwhile asking the community if having different name types has proved useful or not. This might turn out to be something that people don't care too much about. --cos1776 20:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)