Any objections to this plan for name display changes?

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

We're working on simplifying our name displays, i.e. the way in which a person's name is displayed in various contexts around the site. (For a summary of the current name displays, click to your profile or anyone else's and then select "Name Displays" from the pull-down menu at the top of the page that starts with the WikiTree ID.)

This is an expansion on my "Announcing minor change in usage of middle initials" post from last week.

Here are the changes we're planning:

1. Remove Prefix from most contexts. Right now we include it on descendant pages, surname index pages, and a few other places. We'd be more consistent is leaving it off. It would probably only appear at the top left of the person's profile and on their edit page.
2. Remove Preferred First Name from most contexts for public people. Right now there is a lot of variation in whether we use the Preferred First Name or the Proper First Name + Middle Name or middle initial. We'd more consistently use Proper First Name + Middle Name.
3. Remove middle initial from all contexts for public people and most contexts for private people. In family trees and elsewhere we use Proper First Name + middle initial for everyone. We'd now use Proper First Name + full Middle Name for public people and Preferred First Name (no middle initial) for private people when you're not on the Trusted List.
4. In those few contexts where we do use middle initial for private people, such as in search results and on surname index pages, we would not use it if the Middle Name is the same as the Preferred First Name. This is basically a bug fix so that if, for example, John Robert Smith goes by Robert he will never be displayed as Robert R. Smith. It won't help if he goes by Rob or Bob.
5. Include Last Name at Birth in more places. We have a short version of names that is just Preferred First Name + Current Last Name. We use this in a lot of places, including here on G2G. For example, when Karen posts in G2G she appears as "Karen Tobo". Now she would appear as "Karen (Lowe) Tobo". We'd aim to make this very consistent, including in change history items.

The central motivations for the changes are:

• Simplicity. Although there would still be at least five ways in which a name could appear, that's a lot less than we have now.
• Cousin bait. This brings us more in line with conventional genealogical usage. A genealogist searching on Google is more likely to use Proper First Name + Middle Name + Last Name at Birth than Preferred First Name + Current Last Name, for example. Using Proper First Name, Middle Name, and LNAB more consistently and in more places should help us appear in more of our distant cousins' search results when they're searching for our ancestor's names.

I don't expect much of this will be controversial, though it may be a little jarring at first for some longtime members. And I'm not 100% sure it won't mess with some projects' carefully-evolved naming standards and the rationales for them. If so, or if anything else about these planned changes sends up a red flag for you, please post here so we can discuss it. Thanks!

Onward and upward, for the single family tree,

Chris

Comments

I take it #4 above only applies when Preferred Name is the one being displayed.  That is, if Proper First Name is being displayed, there's no objection to middle initial being added, even if preferred name = middle name.

In that case, I think this case is covered by the others - the rule is simply that Preferred Name is displayed on its own with no form of middle name attached, whatever it is.

I think the "bug" here is wrongly identified - if George Washington Bloggs goes by Bill, you wouldn't want to call him "Bill W Bloggs", so it's irrelevant whether preferred name = middle name.

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Chris:

Christopher Paul Hampson's (known as Chris Hampson), response to your inquiry presents an oblique perspective on “first” names. What is the proper way to currently enter dual first names at birth, and will the upcoming revision change that.

Sample dual first names:

Christopher Paul Hampson

Jim Bob Dugger

Ellie Mae Clamppet

Should both “first names” at birth be entered in the first name field? With a space between them or a dash between them?

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Hi George. If the first name has two parts, both parts should go in the First Name field. Whether there is a space or dash would depend on how their name was first recorded. At least that's the goal.

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Hi, Mary Anna (no middle name!) Mullen here -

In a lot of records an initial is used instead of the full middle name.  Sometimes you can guess at it and usually be wrong. At least, if you do show the initial, somewhere in research you may come across the full name and know that it is probably the person being researched. 

In my research I came across 3 generations of a Walter P. (father, son and grandson). Eventually I did find a record that showed it was Walter Patrick. Ah well, the fun of genealogy research!

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Here's a new summary and explanation of the plan: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Name_Displays

The way it's laid out here, there are five basic name forms:

1. Short Name
2. Long Name
3. Long Name - Private
4. Tree Name
5. Tree Name - Private

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a few examples to Look at.

My Grandmothers Name was Mahala Nancy Jane Holly on her birth certificate. The first Census I find her on it is McHulda Nancy Jane. Holly.(which is spelled wrong by census taker in My opinion.) Her whole life she went by Nancy Jane (Holly) Cox (first marriage) , Golden (2nd Marriage), also to consider in the same family, some spelled their name Holley, Holly. One of My uncles went into the Army with the Name Holly and the Army misspelled it Holley, so It was too much trouble to get it right. So after that he spelled it Holley  In censuses I find the census taker spelled it the right one sometimes, and wrong sometimes. I also find this on Military records from the 1800's The same person Might be spelled the wrong way. Also I have a John L.Holly, (SR) John Francis Holly JR, John L. Holly ( actual 3rd) and a John L. Holly 3rd. (who is really the 4th).

 I think  it is important to have the Variations for the research part. Then for instance today in My own Family search Page I DID NOT TAKE THE name of MY current Husband, and they just assume that I am going by his last name. (and I don't know how to change it.) NOBODY will find me with that name in the future. I was not married to one man I lived with in 1972, but I used his name, My first Marriage I toke the Last  name of My Husband, ( no children) The man that I married (who I have two children with used an alias when we got married (I did not know that) So both of MY children's surnames and MY Marriage certificate Names are Under the alias, I never went by his proper name. One marriage I Hyphenated The marriage Name with My Maiden Name and the last name OF the groom.  NOW I go by MY Maiden Name SO I know I am unusual, Or maybe not?

These are things to consider when redoing the name thing!

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If you're talking about reverting to your maiden name, *I* don't think that's unusual. I know of few people who've done that!

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Pam, here in many countries in Europe, women have always kept for legal purposes the surname with which they were born. Thus, in Italy, for example, Milvia Grimaldi is born and marries and will die as Milvia Grimaldi. If she marries Giovanni Sordi, she will be officially on all records and documents ''Milvia Grimaldi'', but in colloquial usage, she will most likely be called ''Signora Sordi'', or '' Milvia Grimaldi in Sordi'' ( a bit old-fashioned, now). In the Netherlands women most often hyphenate: thus Anna van Dam marries Jan van Dijk, and will then be known as ''Anna van Dijk - van Dam''. Or she may simply be known by her name at birth. So, you are in very good company! At WikiTree it is easy to remove a married name. Just go to the profile and change ''Current Last Name'' to the same name as LNAB.

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I don't see that Name Display is an option in the dropdown menu on a profile page. What's the url for seeing how the name will display? (Or is that feature not available anymore? If not, http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Name_Displays#Viewing_Name_Displays_for_a_Person needs to be deleted.)

Thanks! Liz

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Hi Liz,

It should be on the person menu, the one that starts with the WikiTree ID of the profile you're on. It's "Name Displays".

Chris

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Well dang! It's there today. It wasn't yesterday! Honest! I clicked on every single entry under the WikiTree ID & it wasn't there. Next time, I'll reboot before I assume it's a WikiTree change instead of something weird on my computer. I looked too many times on too many profiles to think it was just my eyes! Thanks Chris!

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and... Then I went to check on the profile I was looking at & it was gone again. Plantagenet-533

 

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Ah, I know what it is, Liz. It only appears if you're on the Trusted List of the profile. The original logic for this was that if you're not on the TL it just adds clutter. (That the menu is too long is a common complaint.) But that just adds to confusion. I'll put it on the to-do list to change this.

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Thanks!

Answer 1

I think a lot of people are using Preferred Name where Nickname would work better.  Perhaps Nickname could be relabelled "Known As".

Seems to me change #2 is going in the wrong direction.  It's turning Preferred Name into an alternative Nickname and removing the use of Preferred Name for better purposes.

I would suggest that Preferred Name should be kept for cases where people don't want their real name generally known, and other cases where the real name is obscure and people are unlikely to be recognised by it, or where the real name is actually a matter of doubt.

The usage would be

-- if Preferred Name is set, then it's always displayed instead of real name (being "preferred")

-- in the longest formats, eg profile header, you would see "Preferred Name (Proper First Name Middle Names) CLN", subject to privacy, i.e White or Green or TL member. 

With people who use their middle names, I guess there are two cases -

-- people who use their middle name informally but would use their proper first name on official forms (should probably use Nickname)

-- people who would appear by their middle name even in records (should use Preferred Name).

The general effect would be that people would normally appear on WikiTree by the name by which they normally appear in records.

The effect of change #2 seems to be that, where people are generally known by a name that isn't their "proper" name, WikiTree will insist on using their "proper" name, however obscure.  And there won't be any cure, because setting a Preferred Name won't have the expected effect.

For instance, in the case of the Empress Maud, setting

Proper First Name: Adelaide

Preferred Name : Maud

should do the right thing and make everybody happy, but the effect of change #2 is to do exactly the wrong thing and ensure that the ping-pong continues.  Hello Empress Adelaide.  Not more compatible with other sites.

 

 

Comments

I think RJ's post and John's below are important and should be carefully considered. The biggest change being planned here is #2. Our changes would significantly devalue Preferred First Names for non-living people.

Regarding John's post, uncaring as this may sound for the heroes of the EuroAristo project, I don't think that European Aristocrats or other early ancestors should be our primary concern. The central purpose of this change is to improve the effectiveness of profiles as cousin bait. It's about how genealogists will search for their family member's names.

Therefore, I think it's most relevant for people born in the 19th century and early 20th century. I expect this is when most beginning genealogists hit the end of their family knowledge and start searching Google.

So, we should think about our grandparents' names, great-grandparents', etc. How does this affect those profiles? How would we search for them?

Is it [Preferred First Name] or [Formal First Name] + [Middle Name]?

When I was search for my grandfather, do I search for "Edward Benjamin Whitten" or "Ed Whitten"?

If my grandchild were searching for me, would he search for "Christian Isaac Whitten" or "Chris Whitten"?

Of course, different people will search in different ways. Experienced people will search in many ways. The question is what's most common for the largest target audience.

The questions of proper use of the name fields, how they're used by different members, and how they're used for people from different time periods and cultures, adds significantly more complexity.

There is no simple or universally optimal solution here.

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But what if grandad was always known as Peter even though he was christened Helmut?

Especially in a country full of immigrants, there are lots of people who changed their names.

Seems to me Preferred Name should mean that WikiTree should prefer it.  You're saying it should be written off because people are putting stuff in it that shouldn't be preferred.

Having said that though, there's a need for a "screen name" for G2G posters and other WikiTreers who don't want to go by their Proper First Name, and presumably this will now become the main function of Preferred Name, though it's only applicable to living people.

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Hi RJ,

You're right that this makes Preferred Name a "screen name" that's primarily for active members, their living family members, and their recently-deceased family members.

When we say "preferred" we mean what the person themselves would have preferred to be called. The central issue is that this is often not the form of the name that genealogists will be searching for. For example, if a descendant of yours was searching for you they probably wouldn't be using "RJ".

So, we're essentially saying that when it comes to living people and the recently-deceased, their preferences matter most, while for our ancestors, it's search engine indexing that matters most.

Chris

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So are you saying that search functions work on Preferred Name and ignore Proper First Name, but you're going to switch them to work on Proper First Name instead?

Is this WikiTree search or Google?

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I'm just talking about Google search here.

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I've been thinking some more about this issue and most of the examples I gave are more recent profiles, which means that for most of us they are notables or very distant cousins rather than ancestors that many people share.

Most medieval profiles or earlier, who are more likely to be shared ancestors, often have only one first name (though there can be a range of variations on that name), so there shouldn't be a major issue between first name and preferred name.  Where there could be a problem is in the numerals; Henry III, King of England according to current naming standards, has Henry as his first name, and Henry III as his preferred name.  However currently most search functions on Wikitree only search first name anyway, perhaps it won't really make any difference?

 

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Hi John,

Our internal search does include Preferred First Name and Formal First Name. This change won't affect internal search, just display.

Chris

Answer 2

Hi Chris, I think this looks good.  I would like to know if Mehitable Smith that married Eliakim Smith will be listed as Mehitable (Smith) Smith?  I have lots of female Smiths that married other Smiths and it always looks like she never married because the listing omits her surname at birth.  Thank you!  

Comments

Hi Kitty. I'm afraid I can't think of an easy solution to the (Smith) Smith problem. Since CLN and LNAB are required fields they are the same for many people. My CLN and LNAB are both Whitten. To know the difference, I think we'd need to store an additional indicator in the database.

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I actually prefer this construct. It makes clear that her maiden name was the same as her married name. And it offers an opportunity to check such naming. As we Know, we have many uploaded profiles that used the married name for a woman when the maiden name wasn't known.

Answer 3

I guess I'm conflicted.  I'm Tom, but my name is Thomas. Tom H is not me, Thomas H. is. Loose the middle initial and my 50 year old son Thomas and I are indistinguishable.

Can these wants be addressed?

What's best for Wikitree is, of course, right. though.

Comments

I'm with Tom on this one. I'm Chris, but my full name is Christopher Paul. I may be tasty, but I'm not Chris P.

Also, it seems to me that this middle initial thing is very much American. As a kid in England and an adult in Australia I don't remember a person's middle initial being used as a normal thing.

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Sorry to burst your bubble, Chris, but you can't hang this one on America!  Middle initials aren't used much here either!!!

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Really? I've lived in the US for 18 years and it seems to me that it's a very common thing.

But more to the point, if it's not common practice why are we doing it on WikiTree?

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This change would actually mean using the middle initial with the Preferred First Name less often than we do now.

The reason to use it at times is what Tom mentioned: To provide more information for distinguishing one person from another. To use my own example, there are four or five Chris Whittens in the database, all private. Our middle initials distinguish us from each other in search results and the surname index.

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Why not use the name rather than just the initial? Do you run into space issues with full names? I have a lot of profiles with the same first name, last name, and often second name as well; only the third name distinguishes one from the other.

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The constraint on middle names for private profiles is based on our privacy rules.

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It seems to me that the middle initial in the U.S. is primarily used in a formal, business setting.

Answer 4

1. Should we rethink the rationale for having multiple ways of displaying the names in different contexts? Is that just adding unneccesary(?) complexity?

2. If the handling of names is to be changed can this be done with some consideration for international issues:

a) French compound first names are (depending on the time) entered hyphenated, for instance Marie-Joseph-Stanislas-Aldéric, he went by the name Aldéric, and after immigrating to the US by Albert and Aldéric, depending on the context.

b) Some of my Bohemian ancestors went by both German and Czech forms of their first names during the time the country was officially bilingual: Johann and Jan, again depending on the context. The current options are Proper First Name and Preferred Name. Where to put the bilingual name? Would it be searchable in the Other Nickname field?

c) Eastern order names: Is it at all possible to consider adisplay option for the profile in Eastern order?

Comments

Hi Helmut. I'm afraid this is just a marginal tweak, not a complete rethink.

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I don't see how users will distinguish Andrew Jackson from his namesake.

Also Kitty Mary Smith (who is private) can remain private while revealing her full names.

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Seems like we'd distinguish people by the same name by their birth years.

Answer 5

How would this affect situations where a person's name has completely changed?

Example: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dasgupta-5

His birth name was Arjun Dasgupta. He was adopted, and his new name became Gil Rossellini. LNAB is Dasgupta, first name is Arjun, preferred name is Gil, and Current Last Name is Rossellini.  His name displays at the top of the profile page as "Gil (Dasgupta) Rossellini" (that looks odd, but it's basically correct) but then when I (as trusted list member) visit the page, the name display lower on the page is "Arjun [middle name?] Rossellini formerly Dasgupta" (that's wrong -- he did not use the name Arjun Rossellini). In public view, that second display of his name is "Gil Rossellini formerly Dasgupta," which is basically correct. On his parents' profiles, his name appears as Arjun (Dasgupta) Rossellini (which I think is wrong) in the public view and as Gil (Dasgupta) Rossellini in the edit view.

How would his name be displayed under this proposed change?

Comments

Hi Ellen,

This is a good question.

These new changes would make things worse for Gil Rossellini. As the name fields are currently entered, the headline on his page would become Arjun (Dasgupta) Rossellini. As you say, this is not correct because he was never called Arjun Rossellini.

I tried to figure out a way we could convert to a simpler Birth Name vs. Preferred Name system, or something similar. That is, could we always pair Formal First Name + Middle Name + Last Name at Birth on the one hand, and Preferred First Name + Current Last Name on the other, without mixing the two? Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to make this work for all our various, competing needs.

I'm wondering now if this example of Gil Rossellini points to a need to further elaborate the style rules on Formal First Name. We say on the Name Fields page that it's essentially the same as First Name at Birth and it should be the name that appears on birth records. But maybe this shouldn't be true if a name was formally changed soon after birth, as is often the case with adoptions. Sometimes with adoptions you even have a second birth certificate being issued with the new name. And I know from personal experience that if there's an unintentional spelling error on a birth certificate (don't ask) you can have it formally adjusted in at least some jurisdictions. So, maybe we need to say that Formal First Name is not always the same as First Name at Birth.

Chris

Answer 6

My reaction to the announcement is "Hallelujah" (sp?), especially for #4.  I have a number of ancestors, as well as some living relatives, who use their middle name as the preferred name.  We all grind our teeth when we see a name displayed incorrectly as Middle Name-MI-Surname.  I'm very confident that this one single change to eliminate the incorrect name display will improve WikiTree's stature and increase its rating as a genealogy site significantly among my family members who look at the stuff I post here.  Thanks!!

Answer 7

Chris - I had a related query at http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/169781/privacy-levels-prevent-from-having-private-public-profiles and you may want to consider all the ramifications of that as you tackle this fundamental issue. For example in my case you have a name "Bill" with a different initial "W" (for "William") which is like the Rob/Robert issue referred to below but not quite the same but ignoring that it seems to me changing the privacy settings might be the answer. For example, you could make "Public" an option for living people if the editor is restricted to commenting on him/her self only and not any relatives where the current arrangements would apply. I have no idea if this suggestion would work as I am a novice on WikiTree but I think the answer to this problem lies not just in changing the name fields but also the privacy settings.

From my past experience outside WikiTree there is little doubt that this is a difficult issue to resolve and there may be many unforeseen ramifications. When working at banks I can recall that the name "fields" caused more problems than any others on forms. One trick we used that might be pertinent to resolving this would be to have a box (with appropriate searchable links) for certain predefined explanatory comments on people's public profiles to explain the most common anomalies which there will always be. You can see I tried this on my own profile commentary (before reading your article) at http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Fairclough-119&public=1.

I have one question. Will you be announcing when these changes (once finalised) have been introduced and what they are to all members because they are quite fundamental to the whole of WikiTree and may have more ramifications than already identified by those commenting on your proposals to date? Good luck with this one - you need it! All the best - Bill

Comments

I had the same thought, Bill. A field where complicated names could be explained. Maybe a radio button to open the field?

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Linda - We are broadly in agreement but I'm a bit out of date now and there appear to be threads of related discussions all over the place! Is anyone addressing this issue or has it been fixed already?

Answer 8

I'm still a bit confused as to how it will look, but I think #2 might be a major issue with some European aristocrat profiles with the way naming standards (both Wikitree and EuroAristo project standards) are applied at the moment.  There are quite a few examples where the preferred name is the one that is the most widely known.

For instance, some of the recent Kings and Queens of Great Britain, aren't known by their proper first name, including Queen Victoria, and Kings Edward VII, and George VI.  

Almost all of the European Catholic royal and aristocratic families, used Maria as the proper first name for all the daughters and sometimes all the sons. (One way around that one would be to have two names in the proper first name field, which is already used in some profiles eg use Maria Eleonora, Maria Antonia, Maria Theresia etc)

There are other examples where the best known name is the preferred name; Marie Antoinette for instance.  She was born an Austrian princess and had a German name, Maria Antonia, which following naming standards, as her birth name, should be her proper first name, but she is better known, by the name used once she married into the French royal family.

These are just a few examples, I'm sure there are many more.  I'll have to think about this some more, to see if there is a way around this but it might mean some major changes to the EuroAristo naming standards.

On a more personal note, I really like #5, that any married female ancestors can now have their birth surname and well as their married surname.

Comments

Hi John. Thanks for your post.

I'm afraid you might be right about the implications for EuroAristos. This may make the headlines on their profiles even worse than they already are.

I'm answering a bit more above in my response to RJ.

Answer 9

I'm finding the new arrangement disconcerting when it is applied to people with a preferred name that is distinctly different from the formal name in the record. The preferred name, which used to be prominent on profiles, has in some instances gone missing.

When I clicked on the name "William Traphagen" in my Family Activity Feed (which displays Preferred Names), I was a bit surprised when the profile that opened up did not mention the name "William" in its headings. The profile that I see as Trusted List member has the headline Willem Jansen Traphagen and the name display below that is Willem Jansen Traphagen aka Trophagen, van Lemgo (a lot of names, but no "William"). However, when I scroll down the page, the only name that I see in the various auto-generated fields is "William" ("No known carriers of William's DNA ... have taken ... tests,"  "William Traphagen belongs to a New Netherland family," "William is 19 degrees from Kevin Bacon...", "...if you find matches for William Traphagen," etc.) and when I open the edit window, the only title is William Traphagen. The public version of profile is a bit less disconcerting, as it calls him Willem Jansen (William) Traphagen aka Trophagen, van Lemgo, which includes the name William.

Gil Rosselini, who I discussed earlier in this G2G discussion, is another example. His public profile has the headline Arjun (Dasgupta) Rossellini, which was never his name. The name display below that is Arjun (Gil) Rossellini formerly Dasgupta, which is slightly better because it includes his first name of Gil. However, in the "private view" of the profile that I normally see as a Trusted List member, the second name that's displayed is Arjun Rossellini formerly Dasgupta, so there is no mention of "Gil" anywhere in the data section at the top of the page -- yet all the programmed features inviting me to look at DNA, add memories, etc., use only the name Gil (and the biography, which I wrote, also calls him Gil).

My bottom line:

• To reduce confusion (and the element of surprise), I think that Trusted List members should see the Preferred Name when we open a profile.
• Additionally, seeing how this name thing is working out, I like the idea (suggested earlier in this discussion) of an extra (optional) field for "Preferred Name" that includes the person's full preferred name (e.g., Gil Rosselini) and will generate an additional name display on profile pages.
• As for William Traphagen, I think I will go edit his profile to include several more alternative versions of his name in the "nickname" field.

Answer 10

From what I understand of this conversation, I believe we're moving in the right direction.  One of my frustrations has been where women whose current last name is different from their LNAB have sometimes been displayed with only CLN and sometimes with only LNAB.  So if I'm working with Ann Smith who married Clyde Jones, and Clyde's sister Ann married Thomas Smith, then a display of Ann Smith as I move from one profile to the other can cause confusion -- since in my lifelong genealogical experience I always think of women by their LNAB rather than any of the names they may acquire subsequently.   If the displays were always Ann (Smith) Jones and Ann (Jones) Smith, I'd have a better chance at not getting mixed up!

Answer 11

I can think of two naming traditions that this would confuse.  The German Protestant tradition of giving all children the same baptismal name, so that the "Proper First Name" of all daughters was Anna and all sons Hans while the "real" call name was the 2d name; and the tradition, perhaps mainly Southern, of giving children "honorific" first names, never used except by initials, while the "real" call name was the second name.  No "cousin bait" searches would ever find these people by "proper first names".

Answer 12

For the Dutch loosing the middle field name is no problem, in the Netherlands we don't even have something like a middle name, see the Glossary Netherlands where the use of the name fields is explained for early and more modern profiles. 

But the LNAB and current last name are very important, if one of those misses than we, just like the Euroaristocrats probably would have a problem and this is also probably a or the reason for many over and over imported duplicates already. If the LNAB is corrected here at Wikitree and now a patronymic, the current last name probably is a different one (for the NNS profiles for example) . 

So now if people upload a Gedcom for gedcompare with many duplicates for some of these (NNS , Cape of Good Hope or Dutch) families, these duplicates are not recognized as duplicates, it looks like the Gedcompare system is only comparing the LNAB, so if for example the LNAB originally was (wrong) Roosa and now is corrected here to the patronymic Gijsbertsz (he was born with just the patronymic and never used the last name Roosa, but many genealogies have projected these names backwards, which is wrong and incorrect for many of the Pre-1811 Dutch/NNS/Cape of good Hope Profiles)

The Gedcompare doesn't seem to recognize Jan Gijsbertsz Roosa is actually a duplicate of Jan Gijsbertsz , so in many cases this means almost the whole duplicate lineage is going to be imported again...for Pre-1500 this is less of a problem because these can't be imported anymore, but...for the Pre-1811 it's a huge problem and will cause only and even more duplicates I'm affraid . 

 

Comments

Middle names came into full swing after the frist settlers had started to arrive in the Cape before 1700 and the period directly following the first quarter to half of the eighteenth century. By the early nineteenth century there were elaborate naming systems fo children incorporating and reflecting both back on the matromonial and patronomial side of the family. For example ''Annie'' would at baptism get her mother's first name if she was the first born female, then first middle name the first name of her mother's mother and the second middle name her mother's sister. The following female would get her mother sister's name as first name, etc. (this might not exactly be correct in every detail; I have the info somewhere where the very intricate and complex naming systems are described- some times up to 4 / 5 middle names).