Re: Full Name as Composite Attribute

David Cressey rose and spake:

> When would you want to decompose the name into subcomponents?

At least in my Norwegian genealogy work it makes a lot of sense to decompose names into separate parts. Until about 1900, the majority of Norwegian common folks had no surnames. Instead, they used the given name plus patronym and/or place of living as identifiers. As a patronym literally tells the name of the person's father, this is a genealogical piece of information. The "place of living" or toponym as it's often called, is also a very useful piece of information.

Given names, patronyms, toponyms, as well as proper surnames, all bear a semantic significance. But the rules by which each of these should be interpreted are of course widely different. A genealogy database that doesn't treat different name parts for what they are, is of less value for the researcher than one that does.

-- 
Leif Biberg Kristensen
http://solumslekt.org/