People's names (was Re: sqlite3 error)

[Steve Holden]

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> In message <1160266138.599325.270290 at e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>, John
> Machin wrote:
> 
> 
>>Two problems so far:
>>(1) If you then assume that you should print the phone directory in
>>order of family name, that's not appropriate in some places e.g.
>>Iceland; neither is addressing Jon Jonsson as "Mr Jonsson", and BTW it
>>can be their mother's name e.g. if she has more fame or recognition
>>than their father.
> 
> 
> Your bringing up the phone directory is a good point. That's probably the
> most widely-consulted list of people's names around, so it's worthwhile
> following whatever conventions are laid out in each country/region's phone
> books. (There's also the electoral roll, I suppose, but I would assume that
> follows the same sorts of conventions as the phone book.)
> 
> 
>>(2) Arabic names: you may or may not have their father's name. You
>>might not even have the [usually only one] given name. For example: the
>>person who was known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: this means "father of
>>Musab, the man from Zarqa [a city in Jordan]". You may have the family
>>name as well as the father's and grandfather's given name. You can have
>>the occupation, honorifics, nicknames. For a brief overview, read this:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_names
> 
> 
> The question for me is: which part of his name would he share in common with
> his brothers and sisters? That's the part I would call the "family name".
> 
> One might raise the issue of using names to trace genealogies, origins etc,
> but that's not my concern here. I'm just trying to come up with a way to
> represent names of individuals, in such a way that they can easily be found
> (as in, for example, the local phone book).
> 
> 
>>>I wonder if we need another "middle" field for holding the "bin/binte"
>>>part (could also hold, e.g. "Van" for those names that use this).
>>
>>Not a good idea, IMHO. Consider "Nguyen Van Tran" vs 'Rembrandt van
>>Rijn". Would you peel the Da off Da Costa but not the D' off
>>D'Oliveiro? What do you do with the bod who fills in a form as Dermot
>>O'Sullivan one month and Diarmaid Ó Súilleabháin the next?
> 
> 
> The obvious question is, what does the local phone book do? How do the Dutch
> phone books deal with all the "vans", and the Irish ones with all the "O"
> or "O'"s? Do they put them under V and O respectively, or do they ignore
> that part and look at the rest of the family name (which would make mor
> sense to me)?
> 
Don't forget the UK, where the scots are accommodated by filing Mc 
before Mac everywhere except the 'phone book, where IIRC they are 
treated as equivalent.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden       +44 150 684 7255  +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC/Ltd          http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb       http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings     http://del.icio.us/steve.holden