Special Characters in the Name Field
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.
Answers
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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.
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There are many older profiles that still have the nickname in quotes in the main name field. And some folks still prefer that style.
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(Gripe) And yet we're still not allowed to put an apostrophe in a new place name when creating a place.
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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.
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@sc woz Does that imply that suggest an idea is now working ?
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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.
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To quote the applicable Help Center article ( ) :
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.
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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'
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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.)
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