LNABs at End of Roman Empire

Question

I'm working on several very early profiles which I've adopted, in the period when the Roman Empire was ending.  Rulers of the invading tribes currently have a variety of LNABs, many of which are surely incorrect, but I'm not sure what to correct them to.  

Typically, leaders of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Huns, etc, had a single name only.  Their current LNABs, some imported from GEDCOMs years ago are things like "Of the Vandals".  In some cases the tribe being referred to in plural form, the LNAB is plural, i.e. John Visigoths.  Would John Visigoth (singular) be better?  Is there a word in whatever local language they used that would be more appropriate?  Am I missing a Euroaristo naming standard that would apply?  Knowing that the current LNABs are wrong is an irritant, but I don't want to make changes without some confidence in doing it!

Answer 1

Not really an answer, and I've tried to work with such situations myself (Merovingian, Carolingian, but at least these are real dynasty names), but I really wish there were a better way. I can't help thinking that in the long run these types of esoteric naming systems are not going to help wikitree remain popular for serious genealogy, especially when they are pushed to an extreme like this. Why can't we have people with only one name really? I guess I'm going to be told that it is something to do with the servers?

Comments

Every profile needs a wikitree ID, which of course comes from the LNAB.  A single name could work if the single name was placed in the LNAB field and the first name could be simply left blank.  It would just require a check box saying "this person had a single name."

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I don't know what is happening with this proprosal: :https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/536471/db-schema-expansion-name-table

Also more recently,

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/635042/checkboxes-for-unknown-and-none

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Andrew -- the one name alternative has some attraction, although you lose one piece of functionality that led to the creation of identifying names -- differentiating one person from another.  His name is John.  Yes, but which John? -- Oh, John, Patrick's son.  John the Carpenter.  

So it would seem to me that tribe does have some legitimacy.  Gaiseric.  Which Gaiseric -- oh, Gaiseric of the Vandals.  Gaiseric the Vandal.  Wikitree doesn't like multiple word LNABs, so "of the Vandals" doesn't work.  Gaiseric Vandal would have some merit -- Vandal becomes an adjective there.  The plural Vandals really doesn't work.

But those are English words.  What language did they speak?  The Vandal language whatever that was.  Or in written form, Latin.  My dictionary tells me the Latin form is Wandalica.  Gaiseric Wandalica?  Is that more precise or simply contrived?  If he were an Ostrogoth, he would be Ostrogothorum.  Or am I using the wrong dictionary?  The problem of trying to use a language in which I'm not competent is that there's a high likelihood of error.

I'm moving toward recommending (1) the tribe (2) the single form, i.e. Vandal, not Vandals, and (3) the English version in lieu of the unknown Vandal form, versus the Latin.    Vandal, Ostrogoth, Visigoth as LNABs.