Add Standard Names

On this page: Description, Step by Step, Operation, Notes

Description

TMG supports multiple names for a single person. Additional name tags can be used to capture married names, nicknames, variant spellings, etc. One name must be designated "primary", but all names appear in the picklist and may or may not appear in reports at your discretion.

Add Standard Names adds a name event for everyone who has a specific surname. You supply two surnames: the "standard" one you want for use with the picklist, and the "variant" that appears in the actual source documents. Wherever the program finds the variant surname, it adds a name event with the standard surname.

Step by Step

1. Choose Add Standard Names from the function tree.
2. Key the name to find (the variant name) in the Find surname textbox. This name is called the "target" surname.
3. Check or uncheck Ignore Name-Marr names based on your preference. If checked, married names will be ignored and a married name with the target surname will not prevent the addition of the standard name tag. If unchecked, which is the default, married names will be treated the same as any other name, and a married name with the target surname will prevent the addition of the standard name tag. See Note 1.
4. Key the name to add (the standard name) in the Add standard surname textbox.
5. Choose the tag you would like to use for any added names add from the Name tags to add pull-down menu. See Note 2.
6. Check or uncheck Assign Name Style from target name based on your preference. If checked, which is the default, the name style for the new name will be copied from the target name. If unchecked, the new name will be assigned according to the Name Style selected from the Style for new name pull-down menu.
7. Click the [Add Standard Names] button.

Operation

The program will find people who (a) have a name event with the "variant" surname but (b) do not have a name event with the "standard" surname. For each person found, the program will add the designated name event with the "standard" surname.

See the note about the name index.

Notes

1. TMG Utility uses the Name-Marr Tag parameter in the tmgutil.ini file setting to determine the name of the Name-Marr tag to facilitate internationalization. The default is "Name-Marr".
2. You should probably define a custom name tag for standard names. The custom tag should have a sentence that has been customized for this use, for example, "--", which will exclude the name event from all narratives and reports.
3. When Add Standard Names adds a name, it sets SortSurname equal to the standard surname.