RE: DOCBOOK: Markup for personal names

["Wroth, M. LTC MATH" <am5804 at exmail dot usma dot army dot mil>]

I notice your comment -- correct in my experience -- that librarians and
archivists do not attempt to decompose the name and/because it is difficult
to do so.  This is precisely why I think a usable markup model for this
information is desirable -- the author may be able to supply this
information.

Because of this, though, I think we need to support both 

<personalname><givenname>Mark</givenname><secondname>B.</secondname><surname
>Wroth</surname><lineal>Jr</lineal></personalname>

and

<personalname>Mark B. Wroth Jr</personalname>

In the contexts I use them, a name can contain

given name: a personal name by which the individual is indentified within
his/her own family. This is the "first" or "Christian" name in common usage.

other names: secondary personal names that may be given, but are not
necessarily common with other family members.  The "middle" name common in
the US is an example.  Onomastically, such a name may be a "given name" or a
"surname" (my middle name, for example, is my mothers maiden surname).

nickname: a personal name, usually bestowed by others.  In some cases it is
used in place of, and in others in addition to, the given name.  Usually
informal.

surname: a name common to all members of a particular family, passed from
generation to generation without alteration.  Onomastically may have
resulted from other classes of names (locatives, occupational bynames, and
patronymics are all common).

locative: a name element indicating a place of origin or residence.  Can be
viewed as a form of nickname, but is almost always used in addition to a
personal name of some sort.

patronymic (or matronymic): a name indicating who one's parent is.  It may
serve the function of a surname (e.g. Icelandic practice) or it may be used
as a nickname (e.g. Russian practice).

lineal marker: a particle added to distinguish between members of the same
lineage with the same name (e.g. "junior/senior").

honorific: a spoken form used in address (e.g. "Mr.", "Dr", "the Honorable")

title: a reference to rank held by the individual.  This may be a form of
address (e.g. most military ranks), but need not be: there are a number of
ranks where the form of address used is not obviously related to the rank
itself).


Obviously, there are a lot of possibilities here, and I'm not a naming
expert, so I've probably missed some.  Here are my thoughts on the markup to
capture this reasonably:

common attribute: 
	position (shows the place in the name order the word normally
appears)


Element given
	attributes: role (e.g. baptismal, nickname, locative ...)

Element surname
	May contain itself (e.g. <surname><surname>Vega</surname> y
<surname>Asturias</surname></surname>

Element lineal

Element title
	attribute: title|spoken (I want to leave role available for further
description, while distinguishing between forms of address and titles)

With a content model that allows a person's name to be marked as such
without further description, I think I could live with this description.

I suspect the real challenge is finding a markup that is flexible enough to
be ignored, used at a minimal level, and used to capture details about the
name.

-----Original Message-----
From: Norman Walsh [mailto:ndw@nwalsh.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 1:09 PM
To: docbook@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: DOCBOOK: Markup for personal names


I've had a long standing action item to write a new proposal for
"names and addresses". So I've been thinking about personal
names. Right now we have author, editor, etc. but there's clearly a
desire to markup other sorts of personal names (other sorts of
contributors) and to cleanup the association of names and addresses.

Rather than reinvent the wheel from scratch, I wonder if there are any
sources we could borrow from. Does anyone know of a good name markup
schema?

In the meantime, there are a few high-level issues we can discuss.

Our current design was influenced by the fact that we originally
viewed bibliographic markup as "raw" with the expectation that a
processor would generate all of the markup. We now have have "cooked"
forms that allow authors to put in the markup.

So one top-level question we could ask is, do we want

  <person><firstname>Norman</firstname><surname>Walsh</surname></person>

or something like

  <person>Norman Walsh</person>

I note that the latter form is the one that professional librarians
actually use because there are too many cultural traditions for a
reliable decomposition to be possible.

If we want the former form, how many of these forms do we want to be
able to support:

  Norman Walsh
  Norman ("Norm") Walsh
  Norm
  Mr. Walsh
  Norman D. Walsh

and from what markup?

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | No matter how cynical I get, I
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | find I just can't keep up.--Lily
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | Tomlin