names, confusing

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• Previous message: John Westbrook: "Re: Dictionary Status Update (names; special characters)"

I regret to prolong a discussion that should simply be closed by
a clean decision of some sort, but just for the sake of clarity on
the issue of names in databases, consider the case of John Smith
with a son named John Smith Jr.  We wish to enter cites for both
in a useful way in a database.  Now, if everone is just an individual,
there is no need to be concerned with family names per se at all.
However, if we will be searching the data to see which relatives
are publishing, then we should give related people related names,
and, in honor of the very concept of family, we might wish to give
members of the same family the same family name.  This should
encourage us to say that the family name in both cases is Smith,
rather than contending that one party has a family name of Smith
and the other has a family name of Smith Jr.   Indeed, in most
families, John Jr may well be called John Jr as if his forename
were John Jr, arguing for the construction Smith, John Jr. which
leaves the son nicely related to Smith, John and avoids
misconstructions when the father is called Smith, John Senior.

Worse, some people follow the practice of dropping Jr when Senior
passes away.  They do not think that their family name has changed,
and in searching cites, we may wish to link them to their past, which
suggests pushing Jr, Senior, I, II, III, etc as far from the family
name as possible and even dropping it for search preliminary search
purposes.

Now, since the question of titles was raised, I do hope that, if a
CIF does allow titles with names it will do so in some way which
allows the titles to be clearly distinguished from names.  Better
to eschew titles entirely than to add to the confusion.  Generational
suffixes are difficult enough to disambiguate from names.  Titles
are even harder.

Consistency is an attribute of good databases.  It is difficult to
be consistent with names, but, precisely because the questions raised
are difficult, it may be worth a bit more thought.

• Previous message: John Westbrook: "Re: Dictionary Status Update (names; special characters)"