Names 姓名

Alias
Chinese names
Married name
Thread about names in PGV forum

Names

Last Name is a relatively recent historical invention. Depending on the country, few hundred years ago people were known by their names (John) with possible addition of their professions Smith or a place where they lived (Anaximenes of Miletus). Later those nicknames were converted into the family names, which in some countries can be very complex. PGV gives you the tools to enter the names using the following fields:

Name

This is a display field, which will show the name as you enter data in other fields. By convention, the family name is enclosed in slashes „/” – this is how Gedcom recognizes the last name. You should try to make this name look like the usual way of writing the person’s name, for example John D /Smith/, Gustav /von Aschenbach/, Arthur /Brown/ Jr, Dr. Anna /Clark/ etc.

Prefix

Name prefix, for example Mr, Dr, Sir, Don etc.

Given Names

One or more given names separated by spaces. If only initial is known, enter it here as well. You can indicate the preferred name with an asterisk after the name, e.g. John Arhur*; in display the preferred name will be underlined.

Surname Prefix

Prefix that comes before the surname, like in German or Dutch Von, van, van der etc. Some common prefixes are already spelled out for you , just click on the name: al, da, de, den, dem, der, di, du, el, la, van, von. The prefix will be displayed together with the surname like in Gustav /von Aschenbach/.

Surname

Surname or most commonly used surname (if there are several), or surname acquired at birth, if applicable.

Suffix

Part that come after surname; typical suffixes are also spelled out for your convenience, Jr, Sr, I, II, III, IV, MD, PhD, but you can add your own.

Nickname

Many people are commonly known by their nickname rather than first name; a nickname is usually acquired later in life, and is not part of formal name.

Married Name

Like Name it is an display field showing a complete Married Name

Married Surname

Typically after marriage wife’s or husband’s names change. You can enter here the name of a person as known after marriage. In searching for (or listing) people, the person can now be located both by her/his Surname and Married Name, which makes it easier to find him/her (and also causes double listing).

If you use non-Latin alphabets such as Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic or Arabic, and the administrator enabled additional tags, you will also see fields like Romanized, Phonetic, Hebraic etc., allowing you to store different versions of the name in several alphabets.

Multiple names

It is possible to add additional names to the person record. The preferred name should be listed first, and it is useful to add a note explaining the circumstances of changing the name. It is also possible to enter multiple Married Names (see Married Name above)

Editing / Deleting Names

The Options for individual menu allows one to edit any aspect of individual name. It is also possible to delete a name. When you delete the name, you do not delete the individual, he still exists with all the family link – his/her name will be listed as unknown.