Name Field Guidelines

Profile manager: Liz Shifflett [send private message]

Name Field Guidelines

WikiTree's general name field guidelines say to "use their conventions instead of ours." Determining what someone used as their "Last Name at Birth" (LNAB) can be difficult, but a decision must be made because WikiTree profiles are uniquely identified based on their LNAB (e.g., Sample-7). To determine what to use in the LNAB field, WikiTree says that for people who "could fit within an established project consult with the project members and refer to project-specific style guides."

WikiTree's Style Guide — the official formatting standards and style conventions that our community has evolved — includes links to several Name Field Guideline pages (under "N"), but it is not comprehensive. The following is a more comprehensive list, and includes links to projects that manage the guidelines.

Note - Many of the guidelines listed below cover "Current Last Name" and married women specifically (when a married woman took her husband's last name, it is often the name in the "Current Last Name" field, but this is not always the case). See this G2G post (from 2020) for more information about when a married woman took her husband's surname. See also this G2G post (1 August 2023).

• Name Fields
  • WikiTree Help

• Argentine Naming Conventions
  • G2G proposal (posted 31 August 2022)
  • Latin America Project

• Acadians Project FAQs (about name fields, "dit" names)
  Familles acadiennes
  • Acadians Project
  • see also this G2G discussion
  • see also French naming conventions, posted by the France Project
  • see also Quebecois Project/Guidelines on Names

• Australian First Nations naming guidelines
  • Australia Project

• Belgium (see below)

• Colonial South (Maryland, Virginia, Carolinas, Georgia)
  Editing Guidance, Example
  • US Southern Colonies Project

• Czech (Bohemian) Names
  • Czech Roots Project

• Danish Naming Conventions and Related Wikitree Name Field Guidelines
  • Denmark Project
  • see also this G2G discussion (Danish Tilnavn names) & this one (best practice)

• Dutch (see Netherlands, below)
  • Dutch Roots Project is now Netherlands Project

• England Project - Profile Standards
  • England Project

• Enslaved Peoples of the USA Naming Conventions
  • US Black Heritage Project

• European Aristocrats
  • European Aristocrats Project

• Finland naming convention
  • Project Finland

• First Nations, First Peoples (see also Native American entry, below)
  • Australian First Nations naming guidelines, Australia Project
  • Naming Convention for First Peoples of Canada, The First Peoples Canada Project (see also this G2G discussion)

• Flemish Naming Conventions
  Netherlands Project/Dutch and Flemish Name Fields
  • Belgium Project

• French naming conventions
  • France Project
  • see also [this G2G post] about French noble surnames

• German naming conventions
  • Germany Project
  • G2G: "German Medieval Naming Conventions" (discussion)

• Icelandic naming Conventions
  • Iceland Project

• Indigenous Peoples Naming Conventions - see First Nations, First Peoples (above) & Native American entry (below)

• Italian naming conventions
  • Italy Project

• Indonesia Profile Conventions
  • Indonesia Project
  • see also these G2G discussions: Indonesian naming conventions, How do you enter an Indonesian with no surname, Is ... a good model for Indonesian Batak royalty?, and Issues specific to indian families

• Louisiana Families/Louisiana Categories projects
  • Project:Louisiana follows guidelines posted by the Quebecois Project
  • see also Project:Acadians' guidance

• Magna Carta Naming Standards & Datafield Guide
  • Magna Carta Project

• Medieval / Noble Naming Conventions
  • See EuroAristo Project and Welsh Patronymic Naming Guidance
  • See also G2G posts tagged medieval and/or naming_conventions (the "nobility" tag also has some discussions of interest

• Native American Naming Conventions (see also First Nations, First Peoples, above)
  • Native Americans Project Category

• Nederlandse Naamconventie
  Dutch Naming Convention
  Dutch and Flemish Name Fields
  - (see also Flemish, above)
  • Netherlands Project (previously Dutch Roots Project)
  • Glossary Netherlands

• New Netherland Settlers, Naming Conventions
  • New Netherland Settlers Project

• New Zealand Maori Naming Conventions
  • New Zealand Project
  • see also this G2G discussion & this one

• Nordic Project - Name Field Guidelines
  • The Nordic Project - Name Field Guidelines page includes links to naming convention pages for Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden (which are also on this page: #Denmark, #Finland, #Iceland, #Norway, and #Sweden).

• Norway Project Naming Conventions
  • Norway Project

• Polish Naming Conventions
  • Poland Project
  • G2G posts: [Feminine LNABs] and [Polish Surnames]

• Portuguese Naming Conventions
  • Portugal Project
  • see also this G2G discussion

• Quebecois Project Guidelines on Names (includes "dit" names)
  • Quebecois Project

• Scandinavian Naming Conventions
  • see this G2G discussion
  • Early Scandinavia Project - Name Guidelines
  • see also the "Nordic Project" entry on this page.

• Scotland Name Field Guildelines
  • Scotland Project

• South African Name Fields on Profiles
  • South Africa

• Spanish Naming Conventions
  • Latin American Roots
  • Mexico Project: Mexico Project Guidelines and Resources
  • Puerto Rican Roots
  • Chilean Roots
  • G2G discussions:
    • Spanish Naming Conventions and how to place them in Wiki Tree
    • Improve support for 2 last names (like in Spain) adding a "Second Last Name" field

• Sweden Project - Name and Location Fields
  • Sweden Project
  • see also Swedish Names (cover page for Category: Swedish Names)

• Welsh Patronymic Naming Guidance
  • Wales Project / Category: Wales, Ancient Kingdoms
  • Cymru Welsh Royals and Aristocrats 742-1535 / Naming Guide

Still Developing

• Working page: Irish Naming Standards, Irish Roots Project. See this G2G discussion & also this one.
• Japanese Names, G2G discussion; Japanese Royals, G2G discussion
• Muslim Naming Conventions - G2G discussion

Unknown has its own project & recently posted in G2G a "refresher" on using Unknown as the LNAB.

Note - many G2G discussions are now including the tag naming_conventions, but discussions also are tagged names, surnames, LNAB, and style. For discussions of what to call a place, see the tag place_names.