Middle Names

Question

Hi everyone when adding a new person is there any way to show no middle name before saving person then having to again click on middle name and go back to cick the box for no middle name.

Thanks

Comments

Not that I've ever seen...

---

We have asked for this earlier. We were told it's on the to-do list for next time the layout of the form was being worked on. Since, as far as I remember, this was shortly after the latest re-working of the layout, I think we need some patience.

---

Hi thanks for the comments made by you all and perhaps we will see this change as and when the Wiki team can manage it I understand its not just as straight forward as we think.

 

Answer 1

Same as clicking radio button/boxes that the person has no spouse, and that they have no children.

Answer 2

Eva mentioned, but just so you get it from the Team :-) It's on our to-do list. Every round of improvements takes a bit of time to work through, then test, then rework and introduce to the community. We try to do them by category, so the next time we work on the Add New Person form, we'll see what we can do. Thanks!

Comments

Can it be re-worked to just get rid of that field entirely? As far as I can tell, the only culture that uses middle names in the American sense is, well, America -- even in England, some people find our usage weird. In the rest of the world, they're all just given names, and people are free to use whichever one they want.

---

Absolutely agree with this comment. It would be far simpler if the first field encompassed all given names.

 I've  recently seen several  profiles changed to force the second and any  subsequent names into the middle name field with the first one  arbitrarily  chosen as the preferred name. This in many cases will be incorrect.

It happens because of the artificial division into first and middle names.(and  the data base error it appears to trigger)

It  doesn't take into account  those very many  Mary Anns and Mary Janes  who always used both even if they were spelt as 2 separate words,  nor those like Norman St John (strange first one that came into my head but there are many like that !)  who used their full  name throughout their lives. And even though I only use my first given name in everyday life, I've realised that I  sign with my full name and when I  swore an oath as at my wedding or when I was an executor I used my full given name.

---

I have now entered about 250 Norwegian profiles in WikiTree, and this "Middle name" thing is already feeling very old, like my Norwegian ancestors ever had such a thing. Quite a few people are using the "Middle name" field for patronyms, which I believe is a singularly bad idea. It's even the currently recommended practice in the Project Norway FAQ, a recommendation that I really do hope will be changed very soon.

The same goes for the "Unusual data" each time I enter a double given name like Anne Marie or Karl Andreas. Those were (and still are) perfectly usual given names in Norway.