[x] Fore-Play for last names?

I had a question come up after I got the Orange Peels albums into the DB. Basist Jill is legally named "Jill Pries Clapp"; Pries was her maiden name, and when she got married she legally changed her name to the above to ensure it was officially part of her name (rather than just understood to be there). She consistently uses Jill Pries in her musical career, and wishes to be known as Jill Pries to all but some of her closest friends. After I entered her in the system, she was somewhat frustrated that the site seems to "denigrate" her "real name" of Jill Pries for her "other real name" of "Jill Clapp", "which has nothing to do with the Orange Peels". She wanted to know if she could be entered as Jill Pries, since that is a valid (portion of her) legal name.

Now, if we were discussing the Jill part instead of the Pries part, I'd say sure, no problem, due to Fore-Play #2 (although given his objections in the James LaBrie thread perhaps misterpomp would disagree with me). But for now I told her I wasn't sure what I could do.

Should we consider expanding those rules to allow for the usage of partial legal names for last names as well as first? Then Clapp, as well as maybe Share Pedersen (who never appears as Share Ross) and a few others, could just go in as that.

Thoughts?

Is her name Jill Pries Clapp or Jill Pries-Clapp?
If the former - the choices are;
'Jill Pries' (we know this not to be the artist's real/legal name);
'Jill Clapp' (that would appear to be the artist's real/legal name);
'Jill Pries Clapp' (if the artist tells us that is their full 'real name' then that would definitely carry some weight with me)

If the latter then it would have to (for me) be Jill Pries-Clapp as the two elements of the surname have been conjoined and now need to stand together or they fall and make no sense apart.

It feels like the latter since we are told this is part of the surname and a two word non-conjoined surname would be highly unusual.

I guess it was only a matter of time before an artist preferred that their 'real name' (as defined by us) didn't appear in the dB for some reason. This one might be a reasonable request but if we dig up that some long-lost glamster with too many 'x's in his name has a real name he'd rather keep quiet - will we concede to that too?

Her legal name is Jill Pries Clapp (no hyphen). She considers Pries and Clapp both to be last names, and uses Pries in all musical situations, and Clapp with a few people otherwise. I guess I'm uncomfortable saying "we know this not to be the artist's real/legal name" when it is, in fact, her real legal name, just not her complete legal names - but no less than Paul McCartney is not a complete legal name either.

I think I feel like we should either allow most/all "subsets of legal name" under identical constraints, regardless of how the subsetting is done, or else we should allow none and always use the very first and very last portion of the "legal name" as we happen to know it. (Or, optionally, the "full legal name".)

Having a two word non-conjoined surname, while unusual, is certainly not unprecedented. I remember a math text I had in college that I couldn't find in the card catalog because what I thought to be the author's middle name was the first part of his surname. I also once had a coworker with the same kind of surname. Adding a hyphen is definitely wrong, because it's not part of the surname, as my ex-coworker politely told me once.

That said, that does not appear to be the case here. It seems to be the case that Jill does not use the last name "Pries Clapp" but uses Pries socially, and Clapp legally. In that sense, it's no different than anyone else aliased on the site.

I don't have a problem with her "real" name being listed as "Jill Pries Clapp," just so that it doesn't seem that she chose "Pries" out of thin air. Perhaps the rules could allow that if the alias is a subset of the real name, or something like that. But I don't think we can leave Clapp out of it in any case.

Assuming that a two-part nonconjoined last name is fine, PK, am I correctly understanding that she still would prefer to be

Jill Pries

and not

Jill Pries Clapp||Jil Pries

?

I'm not sure that bits of one's surname are optional. Otherwise we'll have a load of restating of various aliases based on the artist's preferences. If your 'real name' is John Smith Jones and you are Mr. Smith Jones - I don't think that calling yourself Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones could ever be anything other than an 'alias'. I really don't support allowing this artist to have a 'real name' surname that is a subset of their true 'real name' surname. The full surname must have some meaning (or else it would not exist in the 'real' world) - it seems to me difficult to contruct a reason why we would disregard it.

To some degree I agree with mr. p -- both Jill Clapp and Jill Pries are "aliases" of a person whose name is Jill Pries Clapp. But I think that's the same argument as saying that my name (Peter Kasting) is an "alias" for Peter Andrew Kasting, which is my full name. The fact that we distinguish "first", "middle", and "last" names is a bit artificial, which becomes clear whenever you have people with six last names, maiden + married names (as in the case of the aforementioned Jill Clapp), etc. In fact it's worse, because while I actually _use_ Peter Andrew Kasting on occasion, I don't think Jill has ever used Jill Pries Clapp in any situation in her life - always either one or the other.

Really, I'd prefer one of the following two rules:
* The artist's real name is as much of their legal real name as we are able to determine, regardless of their use of this name in real life. (This would make the "information overload" people happy but would result in artist names that have a lot more information than you want, and would probably increase the workload for album submissions.)
* The artist's real name is the predominantly used subset of the artist's full legal name. By default this is a single first and last name, but may for example be a middle + last name, first + maiden name, full legal name, or other subset if such usage is common in the artist's musical career.

That second rule seems to allow all the craziness we've had in the DB so far (James LaBrie, Obi ajula Ugbomah, and in this case Jill Pries) without some of the artificiality that marks the current set of rules, and I'd be happy to see it adopted.

pk - I understand that it's not this artist's everyday name but is it not an exaggeration to say: "I don't think Jill has ever used Jill Pries Clapp in any situation in her life". If she had never used it - it wouldn't be her name. Presumably legal documents and the like have to be filled out with this name because (I'd think) omitting part of your surname/family name is not optional on these. I'm sure there are other countries and cultures we'll find where surnames are more maleable but in my experience a surname is pretty inflexible in western, English-based societies - it's got to all be in.

No, she fills out legal documents as Jill Clapp. Because Pries is her maiden name, it's not legally considered part of her "surname". _She_ considers it a last name - but one complete last name of two that she has.

You're right that I can't have been right about _never_ using it -- she used it once on a certificate of what her full name was, after she got married. Other than that, I stand by my earlier statement :)

Anyway, I really don't care about what Jill does and doesn't consider her last name -- we're not trying to make rules specifically for her or figure out what the US Legal Code says or anything like that. I'd rather discuss that second rule proposal I made in terms of how it would be applicable _generally_.

I agree this isn't about the particular artist. But that artist is a tangible example so it's probably easiest to run with that. However - this one seems horibly tangled as we have now been told that 'Pries' is part of the artist's 'last name' and now that it's 'not part of her surname'. On this latest advice (ie that Pries is not part of her surname and therefore must be a forename), I revert to my earlier position that the correct name could be:
'Jill Pries Clapp' (if the artist tells us that is their full 'real name' then that would definitely carry some weight with me)

As for your wider-reaching proposals - no I can't say I am in favour of either of them. I agree that #1 will just give us overly-long and redundant names but I like the fact that we try to establish the 'legal name' of the artists. As I say, I would go as far as allowing a degree of latitude to an artist who proclaims any particular forename to be important and try to include that - but I wouldn't want to allow that to include the loss of some of the legal name.

I never said Pries was "part of the artist's last name" -- I said that she considers it a last name and uses it as such.

As for losing some of the "legal name", isn't that what we're already doing? Les Gray anyone?

I guess I need to understand exactly what we're trying to record in the "real name" and "alias" fields. We don't seem to agree at all on what those represent. If the real name is going to be a subset of the full name, how are we to decide what subset? Why is it OK to use a subset that chops part or all of the first or middle name, or removes a maiden name, but not removes a married name? Does one set of modifications somehow represent reality more closely as defined by usage OR by legality? No, the answer is that neither one does. My two proposals attempted to capture reality in the form of first "legality" (full name) and then "usage" (arbitrary subset of real name defaulting to first + last). But you don't like those, and I don't see how you justify your position. It seems to be "well, you can throw out anything you want, except for the last complete word in the name, which you can't". That doesn't map to anything I'm aware of.

My position is clear (at least to me) and, as far as I'm aware, roughly maps to normal usage of people's real names in Anglo-centric societies and I'd summarise like this:
>>
A b2b 'real name' is made up of;
1) A forename or a number of forenames (or their diminutives). This is based on everyday usage as we can best establish it.
2) A 'surname' or ' family name' (in full)
<<

I don't believe a 'maiden name' when used the way this artist does has any special status - it has simply become another forename. Equally (and I know we've rehearsed this argument before) I don't believe that the first-listed forename has any pre-eminent status over any other forenames.

You are right that this is a compromise between something we might consider 'full legal name' and 'name as used every day'. I don't see what the problem with that is - We allow truncation of the forenames but no alteration to the surname. That (to me) seems both easy to codify and to broadly reflect in some ways the underlying reality of how names are used. I think your last point - even in the sarcastic way it was made - probably does have a ring of truth to it as far as I'm concerned; that you can mess about with your forenames while you cannot with your surname.