Person's Names

In the eCandidus™ Desktop, most roads end in the Address Book.   The handling of company names is straight forward, what you type is what you get.  And the entry of a person's is just as simple, however what happens behind the scene is very different.

Parsing of the name

The system divides the name into five basic parts:

  • First Name
  • Middle Name
  • Last Name
  • Generation (suffix)
  • Professional Indicator

We have reviewed rules used by various businesses and educational institutions, and developed what we believe is a fairly comprehensive algorithm to properly format names.

 

First Name

The first name is the first word in the name.  If the first word is a single letter, then the second word is also part of the first name.  For example:

  1. John
  2. J. R.

Middle Name

The middle name are any words between the first name and the last name.

Last Name

The last name portion is typically the last word in the name, except when compound last names come into play.  A compound last name is composed of more than one word, and are typically European in origin.

  1. Smith
  2. Ewing
  3. van de Kamp
  4. della Rossa
  5. Gonzalez y Martinez
  6. Pierce-Arrow

Generation (suffix)

The generation indicates a relationship with ancestors.  Only one suffix is allowed.

  1. Sr
  2. Jr
  3. II
  4. III

Professional Indicator

The professional indicator indicates the educational level, or specialized degrees.  Only one indicator is allowed.

  1. Esq
  2. MD
  3. PhD

 

The system will first find and remove then generational and professional  sections from the name, and then process the remaining words into the proper places.  It will then format the name in the proper sequence, including capitalization and the placement of periods, and then display the result.

 

Sample of a complex name

The following input:

    o alex de jesus macdonalds y o'donnell phd jr

is parsed as:

    First Name:       O. Alex

    Middle Name:    de Jesus

    Last Name:       MacDonalds y O'Donnell

    Generational:    Jr

    Profession:        PhD

 

Which would make the person a doctor, the son of a Spaniard who moved to the US and decided to keep his original last name, whose father was Scottish, and mother was Irish.   We believe a truly unique individual.