How to use proper first name and preferred name in Scandinavian tradition, eg Simon Erichsson?

Question

A number of Scandinavian names (before 1900) are used in the form of "name" "father's/mother's name"-son/daughter, eg. Simon Erichsson. In this case the 'Proper First Name' is Simon. How about the 'Preferred Name, should it be  Simon Erichsson or only Erichsson, In some outputs the name can be a combination of Proper First Name and Prefferred Name and could look like Simon Simon Erichsson. 

This must be a very common problem, so there would be a an answer off the "shelf"? :-)

Answer 1

Since you cannot leave the Last Name at Birth empty for a WikiTree profile, Erichsson will have to go in as a surname even if this may not be strictly correct from some points of view. It won't get mixed up with the preferred name.

It is trickier when there is both an actual family name to go in the surname fields and a patronymic, like if he was Simon Erichsson Lang.

When these names are imported by GEDCOM they often end up with Erichsson_Lang in the field for Last Name at Birth. This destroys the search functions of WikiTree pretty well, so for this reason it is better to have only Lang as Last Name at Birth. But where to put Erichsson?

Well, in my opinion it is best to put it as a middle name, even if it isn't what we think of as a middle name today. The patronymic is, after all, a name that comes in the middle, between the given name and the family name, when a person has all three.

Comments

The set of fields for names in WikiTree are just not very flexible for all the types of names that occur, globally.

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Thanks Eva.

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If Erichsson is put as a middle name, will it come up if I do a search for Erichsson as last name?? Or should it be put in "other last names" to come up in a search?

If I don't know a family name but know his fathers first name then the -sson name is what I would search for.

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I keep confusing myself about how to enter ancestor profiles that have both a patronym and a given last name.  

I have been following the practice of entering the patronym as the middle name and the given last name as the LNAB.  

Though after reading more G2G threads maybe the patronym should be the LNAB and the family last name should be in the Current Last Name field?

Obviously it depends on the specific circumstances of the time and place.