Sir Robert Darcy, Kt. - display name

Unfortunately, the name and display fields are locked. I can't do much about it.

Private User, can you take a look?

Prefixes in Geni are harder to work with, the display name is a "must," whereas a post nominal can go in the suffix. And the suffix can be turned off in name account settings (nice is you're using pedigree view & would prefer to truncate).

Just a comment. I'm still cleaning up "avast Sir Knight" profiles.

This subject might always generate some controversy.

The full legal name of British knights takes the form "Sir John Doe, Knight". (or Knight Bachelor).

If you look at the primary sources throughout the middle ages, you'll see that knights are always named in this way in formal documents. It is still the correct legal form of their names.

In the early middle ages, Sir was used for both priests and knights. Before about 1200 Sir often takes the form Sire or Monsire. (This is part of the transition from using French at the English court to using English.) After about 1200 Sir begins to be restricted to knights. There was an intermediate period where Sir seems to have been used indiscriminately as an honorific for anyone who did not have a more specific title. After 1611 Sir has also been used for baronets.

Strictly speaking, you would use "Sir John Doe, Knight" (or Kt. or Kt.B.) to make a distinction from "Sir John Doe, KG" (a knight who belongs to an order) or "Sir John Doe, Baronet"

However, our modern tendency is toward relaxed usage. Sir is so universally established in the public mind as meaning a knight or baronet that many people think adding Knight is redundant. As a result, many modern encyclopedic standards use Sir for knights, and specify the details only for knights of orders (KG, KT, etc.) and for baronets.

It is not correct to drop Sir for baronets, any more or less than for the others -- all of them can appear with only a suffix, and all them can appear with Sir.

So, as we work toward refining the Geni standard we are debating whether to use the full legal name and style, or to use a conveniently abbreviated modern form. As we continue, let's keep in mind that there will be users with strong opinions on both sides.

http://www.geni.com/projects/Naming-Conventions-for-Knights/11429

Justin, you should also mention that you are now only speaking of the persons life after he was knighted, which in some cases can just be a short time of his life.

Then his full legal name for the majority of his life would be different than what his name was when he died.

Some would argue that the name the person used most of his life should be his name on his profile since the software has such big limits when it comes to show a persons names through life.

One point I'd like to make is that I use the documentation aspect of Geni field specifically, including suffix.

So if suffix is used for a post nominal I can document that award.

To me,display name is "narrative" - almost a matter of taste, can change, probably should.:)

But cited sourced facts need fields to be cited to.

For Remi's point - Geni is (mostly) a historical reference. A display name that conforms to commonly used and available resources is the best option to serve everyone.

Remember my "Pocahantas" story. :)

Seems like there are a lot of choices for doing names, in general.

You could use only and exactly the birth name, in which case Henry VIII was never a king and no one is ever a knight.

You could use the name at death, in which case Anne Boleyn was not Queen-Consort of England.

Or you could use an biographical or encyclopedic style, and use "best remembered as" / "most famous as".

I've never heard of a "most of his life" standard. We could experiment by changing Edward VII to Edward, Prince of Wales, and Pope John Paul II to Rev. Albino Luciani ;)

Good, Justin, you just gave multiple examples of the limitations in Genis software.

How about this theoretical experiment: If a person became pope at the age of 70, and had been using the same name all his life. When he became pope he changed his name, and then he was killed the day after! Would you use the name he used for the first 70 years of his life, or would you use the name he used only 1 day?

Who called "most of his life" a standard?

I prefer the "best known as" as a guideline.

In general, I like "best known as" because to me the issue is accessibility. So, the example of someone who is Pope for one day is not a good example to support using "longest known as". If someone became a pope, most people who look for him will look for him under his papal name.

In fact, this is almost exactly the case of Pope John Paul I, who was pope for 33 days. I don't think most people in the US would know he was Albino Luciani. Maybe in Italy they would.

Two things to remember.

First, even though Geni's software has limitations on handling names this is not one of them. We are talking about choosing a primary name. No matter how Geni handles other names, we still need to have the name we see first. As in Wikipedia -- the article in English is titled Pope John Paul I. We have to read the article to find his other names. (The problem of language-dependent names in Geni is a related but separate issue.)

Secondly, Geni handles all non-primary names. If you put them in the AKA field you can search on them and find the profile you want. As in Wikipedia, we could search on Albino Luciani and find Pope John Paul I. Geni could improve this area so we see names linked to events, but the rudiments are there.

Important note: we don't seem to have a Geni profile for John Paul I, so searching on John Paul I or Albino Luciani won't actually bring up anything. Yet.

Pope John Paul I is now on Geni

I would not know him as Pope John Paul I, that is basically only the English speaking people that do. I would know him as Pave Johannes Paul I. But the popes have language spesific names. Maybe I came up with a bad example, but you could probably relate the same problem to an ordinary and not so public a figure.

I know I can put secondary names into the AKA field, as have been done with both popes with the name John Paul, but it is not good enough, and it is lacking compared to other genealogical software. And people are asking me why Geni has so bad a system for names compared to other software they have used, and if/when it's going to change. And I wish I had an answer for them.

Hopefully Geni/MH will soon take this problem to heart and do something about it.