On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 10:29:45AM +0100, Bert Verhees wrote: > I will come back to the answers I got about II later. > Thanks for this. > > I have another question: about EntityNamePart in the CEN-standard. > > There seems to be no way to tell if a certain namepart actually are > name-initials. > > f.e. > Sometimes people often have more firstnames. > > Often they have a name that is used for casual contacts, and they have names > which are in their passport, their official firstnames, which are often long > names. > > Often, these long names are only known by initials > > Now I am extracting data from a local GP-system, and there is stored the > shortname (f.e. Johnny) and the initials J.B. > His friends call him Johnny B. Good. The second name in that system is only > known by Initial. I have to deal with that. > > Because I want to present as much information as is possible in the standard, > and I want to present the shortname (GIVEN NAME=Johnny), FAMILY NAME=Good, > and because I want to give as much information as possible, because this can > be important to identify a person, I want to add an extra entityNamePart: > J.B. > And now I am looking for a namepartType or namePartQualifier for initials. > > Someone have an idea? >
Naming conventions and methods of writing vary all over the world. It may be difficult finding a common rule fitting all. I thought all that the CEN/TC251 specified for Class:EntityName was merely 'a character string' (or several entity name parts in sequence). This is applicable for a person, organisation or even place or an object. 'EntityNamePart' would therefore be sub-components of the above. But how do you define the sub-componets, as far as name is concerned ? There are no fixed patterns for names or naming conventions. There are many societies where there are no 'Family' names at all. Some have Tribe names in lieu, some with father's or village name as 'names' somewhere wedged in the name string. Some with just unique names with nothing else. To add to this confusion you would then have to find sub-components for nick names and aliases. Bert, like your query regarding short-name and initials, I am also curious in knowing how these name issues are planned to be tackled ... Are there any thoughts in this direction ? Or is it better to leave EntityName simply as a 'character string' with no futher qualifications. Bish - If you have any questions about using this list, please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org
