How to enter an original given name moved to the middle position?

+7 votes
215 views
I apologize if this has been asked before; I can't find it.

I'm trying to enter my father. His parents (in Hungary) gave him the name Csaba. After five years in the U.S. with people being unable to pronounce any part of his name, he adopted Joseph as his new given name and moved Csaba to the (previously empty) middle position.

On the "add" screen, the name fields are labeled: First Name at Birth, Preferred First Name, Last Name at Birth, Current/Married Last Name, Prefix, Middle Name, Nicknames, Other Last Names, Suffix.

I don't remember exactly what I did with those, but I ended up with "Csaba Csaba Palotay" on his profile page. Yipe.

The "edit profile" screen has different labels: Prefix, Proper First Name, Preferred Name, Other Nicknames, Middle Name, Last Name at Birth, Current Last Name, Other Last Name(s), Suffix.

"Proper First Name"?? "Preferred Name"???? I can force myself to ignore the fact that "first name" etc. are Totally Wrong -- on his Hungarian documents, the surname comes first -- but I'm still totally lost.

Where does "Joseph" go? How can I fill this out so that he doesn't end up as Csaba Csaba but that infernal "at birth" label is actually true?
WikiTree profile: Joseph Palotay
in WikiTree Help by J Palotay G2G6 Mach 8 (85.5k points)
retagged by Maggie N.

1 Answer

+6 votes
Hi, this is a great question.  The solution, thankfully, is also simple.

Leave the first name at birth as Csaba and put Joseph in the preferred first name field.  If Joseph was his middle name then put that in the middle name field.

Does that make sense?
by Peter Jones G2G6 Mach 2 (28.3k points)
Joseph wasn’t the middle name.  After he changes his first name, he made Csaba his middle name.

As Jilliane said, Joseph was his given ("first") name (after naturalization). Putting Csaba in the "Proper/Birth" field results in Csaba Csaba.

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