[x] Short People Got No Reason

PS : Among the people going to fall foul of the current ruling are Bruce Dickinson (birth name Paul B Dickinson: went by 'Bruce Bruce' so will need to have a primary name of Paul Dickinson) and Paul McCartney (birth name James P McCartney: went by Пол МакКартни in 1988 so will need a primary name of James McCartney).

Is transliteration into another language really considered a different use? I would vigorously contest that. That would mean that, if you could find a release of any Western artist in a country where their name was transliterated into a non-Western alphabet (or vice versa), they would lose their "normalized" appellation. I don't buy it.

Also, I'm wondering why misterpomp is so emphatic about all "forenames" being equal. I certainly don't consider my middle name to be "equal" to my first name in any way. In 99.999% of the cases where I have to present my name, I either reduce my middle name to an initial or leave it out entirely.

That said, I don't have a problem with his suggestion either, because entertainers seem to normalize to their middle names fairly frequently. (Baseball players do this a lot, too, it turns out.) I'm OK with treating them that way for b2b purposes.

All forenames ARE equal - as you evidence. Or at least have equal potential until you elevate one of them. You have chosen (and/or it was chosen for you by your family) that the forename you would be known by was the one which was first listed on your birth certificate. Other people choose (and/or have it chosen for them)to use another of their forenames as the one by which they are known. I'm not 'insistent' on people agreeing this as if it were some negotiable point of view. It is a fact that there is no legal or other precedence given to the first-listed forename on the birth certificate. Just because baseball players and entertainers have more well known 'full names' - you can see that this is not some sort of freakish occurrence. Paul McCartney wasn't Jim McCartney until he picked up a Hofner, nor Bruce Dickinson 'Paul Dickinson' until he learnt to impersonate an air-raid siren.
See here for a perfectly straightforward explanation of what has (bewilderingly to me) seemed to be a difficult fact to get acknowledged on band to band.
"Many people are not known by their first forename. This is often referred to as being 'known by the middle name' – but in fact such people do not consider their main forename to be a 'middle name' at all."
[en.wikipedia.org] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_name
(and : No! I didn't just put that into wikipedia!)

I would humbly submit that, if it were so obvious, we wouldn't be spending so much time on it.

If I understand you correctly, your central point is that "there is no legal or other precedence given to the first-listed forename on the birth certificate." I guess my question is, what would it mean if there was, and what does it mean that there isn't?

(That said, the Wikipedia article you point to is completely unsourced and, to put it charitably, poorly written. Your posts on b2b on the subject are far better. Perhaps you *should* edit it.)

You summarise the point absolutely correctly.

If the first-listed forename on a birth certificate *did* have some legal or other precedence over any other forenames then it *would* make sense to revert to it in cases where the artist uses a mixture of aliases, occasionally uses their other forenames or adopts other non-standard names.
But since the first-listed forename *does not* have any such precedence, it *does not* make sense to give it an artificial pre-eminence as we represent artists. Where we have a better choice from among the artist's other forenames - that better choice should be used.

I'd be happy for 'first listed' to be used a tie-breaker: if John James Smith has released lots of albums as John Smith and lots as James Smith; if we had an absence of any other rationale (most often used, chronology, usage outside music) let's go with John - but I can't conceive we'd ever reach that point.

I may have summarized your point correctly, but then phrased my followup questions poorly. Let me re-ask:

What would it mean in the real world (outside of bandtoband.com) if there were a legal precedence given to the the first-listed name on a birth certificate, and what does it mean if there isn't? In other words, what things would be different in the real world today if it were the case that the first-listed name on a birth certificate had legal precedence? This will help me understand your point.

The first-listed name having precedence in the real world would be evidenced if;
The first-listed name had to be the name you went by, or;
All formal documents had to be made out in the form {first-listed forename}+{family name} and {any other forename}+{family name} was not an acceptable format for 'formal' or 'legal' documents.

I accept that there is a default simply based on position (ie in the absence of any other information an assumption that the first-listed is the person's given name). I also accept that some documents may require *all* a person's forenames. Neither of those change the fact that a person may validly opt for their given name to be any of their forenames in any 'real world' situation, however informal or formal.

But doesn't this statement:

"[S]ome documents may require *all* a person's forenames."

contradict your point? It means that for certain legal purposes, it is invalid to only use a name that is not your first-listed forename. And it's not like, in those circumstances where all forenames are required, I can present them in any order I want; the first name has to be there, and it has to come first.

This is the crux of what I'm trying to understand. How can you say, on the one hand, that all forenames are legally equal, and then on the other hand, that in some circumstances they are not?

(Like I said above, I agree with you that for b2b purposes, non-first forenames certainly meet this threshold. I'm trying to understand your larger point.)

No. That's not what I said. I said:

*ALL*

I didn't say:

*ONLY THE FIRST*

I really find it a little difficult to understand how you mangle;
*ALL* (ie no one of them on its own is good enough)
into
*FIRST* (ie the first on its own would be good enough)

There is no documentation which requires *ONLY ONE* forename and that forename *MUST* be the *FIRST-LISTED*.

That really is as clear as it gets and, sorry if it's otherwise, but I do read this latest post of yours as an attempt to make something look complicated that isn't; in the hope that by getting me to repeatedly explain something simple - it ends up looking convoluted.

I truly apologize. There is no gotcha here. I am genuinely trying to understand this, because what you believe to be blindingly obvious is not obvious to me, and is in fact counterintuitive to me. This makes me feel ignorant on this subject, and since it's part and parcel of why we're here, I'd like to not be so ignorant. However, I totally understand that you'd rather not be the parent explaining something for the 92nd time to the seven-year-old, so I understand if you'll no longer indulge me on this. (I think the communication medium exacerbates the problem, sadly, but that's where we are.)

Anyways, here's where we appear to differ:

You believe that, since there is (apparently) no documentation which, when requiring a single forename, requires that name to be the first-given forename, that leads to the conclusion that all forenames are legally equal.

I believe that, since there does exist documentation that requires all forenames, and that the first-given forename must appear first on that documentation, that leads to the conclusion that all forenames are not legally equal, because if they were, there would never be a need for such a requirement.

Do I understand that correctly?

You do understand our point of difference correctly. Yes. But I, because I absolutely don't think you're at all stupid, am struggling to see the argument you make which runs like this:

1. There are some formal situations in which it is required to give *all* forenames and a family name.
2. One of these forenames was written first on a birth-certificate.
3. Therefore to replicate that name exactly it must be written first in these other situations.
4. Therefore, despite the fact that we are in agreement that all forenames must be written for the requirement at (1.) to be satisfied, the first-listed name has a superior, more important or precedent position in any other sense than that it just happens to be first-listed.

My attempt to prove this wrong would be:
Two people Alan Bob Coe and Alan Bob Coe (as per their birth certificates) are known throughout their lives as Alan and Bob respectively.
Alan signs his checks 'Alan', his passport too. All but the most formal of documents refer to him as 'Alan'. However, formal documents require him to be referred to as 'Alan Bob Coe'.
Bob signs his checks 'Bob', his passport too. All but the most formal of documents refer to him as 'Bob'. However, formal documents require him to be referred to as 'Alan Bob Coe'.

Now - in what way is the formal addition of 'Bob' to 'Alan' any different from the formal addition of 'Alan' to 'Bob'?

Let me put it another way; is fish any more important a component of fish & chips than chips?