#113 what kind of name

[Sibella Herbert]

In the first name section of people, the field "What kind of name is this?" needs some further instruction, or a defined list of alternatives. The default that appears in the field is "first name".

This field only appears when you visit a person who is already created in the database, and you click on their first name to see more details. This field is not available when you create a person, or when you add names to a person.

I suspect that originally the alternatives for this field were "first name"; "nickname" ... and i can't think of any others....

Is it a field that needs to be user-defined? or is it really just a reflection of where the computer is holding all names that are input as "first names" - and the user doesn't really need to see it?

[Sibella Herbert]

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"What kind of name is this?" also appears in the places and animals sections. However, here it is always blank.

[Sibella Herbert]

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Further to this "what kind of name" issue. I just got jon to follow my features doc and he came across a problem with inputting a new clan. When you input a clan, name kind is default to "traditional" - you don't get an option to set it. But when you then go back and add an additional name to this clan, you are presented with the question "what kind of name?" if you leave this blank, but click "add this new name to main name" - MP doesn't know how to display it, and doesn't put it in the main name. Therefore, the "what kind" field must be marked as a mandatory field, and if possible should have a drop down list of alternatives. Surname and traditional are the only two alternates for this field, is that correct?

Could you confirm for me the alternatives for animal and place - are they traditional and common (ie english)? If you don't think it's important for v0.1 i will clearly put the instructions down in the features doc.

[Bob Firth]

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I don't really see the problem, the name type is a standard field and isn't really that awkward in this context is it? It is filled in automatically and unless you are very keen to mess around then you won't change it. Possible alternatives to 'first name' are 'middle name' and 'nickname' although people could also potentially come up with others e.g. 'totemic name' or something.

Anyway, I don't think this is 0.1 because it would require some biggish changes to how people names work, which might be good, but not before 0.1.