Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!lfcs!jcb
From: jcb@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Julian Bradfield)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Standardizing Email?
Summary: Not all names are American!
Message-ID: <738@etive.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 29 Aug 88 10:34:54 GMT
References: <788@vsi.UUCP> <79700010@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@etive.ed.ac.uk
Reply-To: jcb@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Julian Bradfield)
Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U
Lines: 32

In article <26548@think.UUCP> barmar@kulla.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin) writes:
>In article <727@etive.ed.ac.uk> jcb@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Julian Bradfield) writes:
>>In article <26196@think.UUCP> barmar@kulla.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin) writes:
>>>... one of the formats is simply the recipient's personal name (structured
>>>into Surname, Given name, Initials, Generational qualifier)

>>I hope that structuring is just one of many possibilities for the
>>structure of a personal name field---otherwise it's not exactly
>>standard! 

>I think that's the only format specified by the standard.  What else
>do you need?  ...
>Actually, I made one transcription mistake.  The standard says "Given
>name(s)", so if full middle names are necessary to identify someone
>they may be given.

Well, without thinking about it, I can come up with the following
problems: how would you deal with

The Duke of Bedford
 (English peers have surnames, but don't use them)
Fernando Colon de Lopez y Garcia
 (will you put all of the last names in the surname field? Omit the
"de Lopez y Garcia"? or what?)
Vigdis Finbogadottir
 (Icelanders don't have surnames, only patronymics, and they're listed
under their name, not under their patronymic)

I'm sure if I knew about more countries, I could come up with more
naming schemes! But even if the `standard' is intended solely for
American use (the structuring you give seems to be only for American
Anglo-Saxon(ized) names), not everybody in the U.S. has an American name!