Standardized Name Entries

Pamela Burdett Jensen

I understand that the standardized entry for people names does not include adding a prefix or suffix. If that's the case, why are these prompts on the person page?

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Hm?

There is no such thing as a "standardized entry" for people's names. Could you please elaborate?

Paul W

I assume Pamela is referring to the fact that there are prefix ("Title") and suffix fields on the Person / Details page, when the general advice (in genealogical practice) is not to use them.

I guess they are there for people who want to do things their way (breaking conventions or not) and for use with royalty, etc., who were actually born with a prefix (or perhaps suffix) to their name.

Put another way, the general advice is to record the name of a person as it is found at birth (or soon after). In that case, "Mr" and "Mrs", "Dr." or "Rev." should not be inputted, as should be the case with "junior", "senior", etc. as a suffix. However, many users just like to add such detail (perhaps to give their ancestor some "status" (with a prefix), or (with suffixes) to make it easier to distinguish individuals in a long line of names that are exactly the same - e.g. showing "William Smith I", "William Smith II" and "William Smith III" for successive generations, instead of plain "William Smith", for grandfather, father and son.

Personally, I have never found the need to include a prefix, or suffix, for any of the thousands of names I have added to Family Tree, but would not want to stop another user from using the facility - either purely out of preference, or if they find that makes differentiation of individuals (in their branch) easier for them.

Cheryl Viering

"Junior" is sometimes part of the official name at birth. Sometimes it remains junior. Sometimes it changes to senior when the previous senior dies.

I have dealt with 3 (or more) successive "John Smith son of John Smith"s. In that case, I find it helpful to add numbers as suffix to the name just because they are too danged confusing to keep straight otherwise.

There are many naming traditions. Sometimes the name is changed during life, either a major change of name, or a status (Mr., Goody, Rev. etc.) is bestowed. There are different opinions on whether the birth name, or the lifetime name should be listed as the preferred name. I think it best to leave that decision to the contributor as s/he probably is more familiar with the details of that particular situation.