Special Characters in the Name Field

dlmelville

Why are parenthesis not allowed in the name field but double quotes are ok. Makes no sense, especially when we have the capability to enter Alternate Names.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

I think quotes (double apostrophes) are allowed in the name field in an excess of caution: single quotes (apostrophes) are a valid character in some names.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

There are many older profiles that still have the nickname in quotes in the main name field. And some folks still prefer that style.

Re Searching

(Gripe) And yet we're still not allowed to put an apostrophe in a new place name when creating a place.

sc woz

@dlmelville

Good morning. I hope you received an answer to your question. You can find more answers at How to enter names in FamilySearch. If we do not hear from you soon we will consider this discussion closed. If you have further questions please feel free to respond to the discussion. If you have a suggestion to improve FamilySearch, such as adding further valid characters to the naming protocols, you can place that question at Suggest an Idea.

Re Searching

@sc woz Does that imply that suggest an idea is now working ?

dlmelville

It seems inconsistent to me that a nickname in quotes (") is acceptable but a nickname in commas () is not acceptable. I believe nicknames should be entered in the Alternate Names section of the individual profile and not in the Name field, but I am seeing a growing trend of temple name submissions with the nickname in the name field in quotes (ie. Mary Sue "Tinker" Smith). I seems that I might be alone in this thinking, so best close this discussion.

Gordon Collett

To quote the applicable Help Center article ( https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-to-enter-names-in-family-tree ) :

Add other names a person used in the “Other Information” section. Here are examples:

Nicknames

Names used before or after a move to a new country

Names used to avoid identification

Name changes from adoption, divorce, or some other legal actions

Name variants based on naming customs, such as French "dit" names

Married names of women

Spelling variations

I assumed that parenthesis were banned because they were the old standard for nicknames and FamilySearch does not want nicknames in the Vitals section. It is unfortunate that people trained under old, archaic, obsolete standards developed for paper forms with one line for the name refuse to follow current recommended practice to make proper use of the nearly unlimited number of lines for a nearly unlimited number of names.

dlmelville

to reiterate my comment, why are quotes allowed for nicknames in the name field for a individual profile and commas are not. ?? Seems inconsistent to me, that's all I'm sayin'

RTorchia

OK, first: the block on that set of characters — \@#$%^&*_+=|~?<>[]{}();:0123456789 — seems to be enforced only when creating a new profile. After a profile is already created, or even when creating one through the source linker, any characters can be added — they'll just generate the warning, but can still be saved.

Why those characters? They look like characters commonly used in coding and RegEx, so it wouldn't surprise me if the Dev team excluded those out of caution even though they might generally work. They may also cause some problems with operations that aren't visible to end users.

That said, there are other characters like quotation marks that aren't explicitly blocked and don't generate the warning sign, but they're really not "allowed". Using quotation marks for nicknames in the primary field isn't allowed per the FS naming guideline already linked. A lot of people still do it because it's practiced elsewhere and because it's not strictly enforced. I still see a lot of profiles that include parentheses for name nicknames and name variations in the primary name fields, even though that's not allowed. My guess is people who are using third-party apps to edit FS and/or sync from other sites don't know what the guidelines say, never see the warnings and wouldn't care if they did. (I think most apps don't even show Alert Notes for profiles.)

RobertLeighPritchett

So, with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, can the following suggestion be implemented?

Find " in First Name field.

Cut (or capture) text following the first " and remove it up to the 2nd ".

Remove both remaining quotes.

Create Nickname in Alternate Name tab.

Paste cut (or captured) text into the Alternate Nickname field.

Save Nickname.

Apply this "suggestion" globally as a "genealogy repentance" activity.

Perhaps save the routine as a checkpoint for any future Profile entries that have included quote marks in the Given Name field - similar to what is done now with fully automatically filling out month names that have been abbreviated.

I have been guilty of adding nicknames to the Given name field for decades, so I know there are thousands of these in FamilySearch Profiles. I only discovered the "correct" way of applying nicknames after reading through the listed Knowledge Article linked above. It is a deeply engrained habit I have to personally unlearn.