Name Meaning is breaking up two word surnames
Comments
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I am hoping the algorithims could be improved for the Name Meanings on the About page.
My maiden surname is Van Epps, and also written Van Eps.
Our last name consists of two words and are treated separately on the page. I could understand this, but the meanings given are not appropriate. We are of Dutch heritage, our ancestors came to this country in the 1600s from Netherlands. There is no Vietnamese or Chinese heritage as is suggested in the Name Meaning section for VAN.
As for the EPPS or EPS part of our surname...there is no English or Jewish heritage, as is suggested on the pages.
Hopefully this can be addressed as the wrong impression is given.
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@leonevpearce, using a genealogy website for onomastics (the study of names) is like doing your grocery shopping at the drugstore: it'll do in a pinch, but it's highly unlikely to be fully satisfactory.
(Those name blurbs are very basic lookups in a single book, which is a highly generalist work about names that are common in the U.S. It's the sort of reference work that's only accidentally accurate for any particular case.)
I think the best use of the About page is to ignore its existence.
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My username on another genealogy website is not my name. I regularly receive emails from that site "Discover the meaning behind your last name _________."
It's a computer algorithm, with a fill-in-the-blank, likely drawn from the same book that FamilySearch uses and laughable. I ignore it, too.
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@leonevpearce I'm not sure what our ability is to make changes to the data of the name meanings, but we may be able to submit two word last names together. I'm sure there are many examples from many culters that this would improve.
Thank you for the suggestion.
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I agree with you, FS should keep last names together as a unit instead of divide them...even though there may be 2 or even 3 names in the surname. thanks
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The trick is we also have to submit each part of the surname individually as well. There are many culters that have multiple surnames. For example we have to figure out how to handle "Juan Paco Pedro De La Mar Sanches Rodrigas Ortega" with four last names, one with multiple words. "De La Mar", Sanches, Rodrigas, Ortega
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