Support for compound surnames

[apater]

If CiviCRM supports compound surnames, I haven't found how to enable that support.

I am getting started with CiviCRM with the goal of providing support to NGOs in Latin America. Compound surnames are a necesary feature here. Can someone point me in the right direction to get started on adding this?

Compound surnames from wikipedia

[Coleman Watts]

A couple options:
- Add a custom field
- Use word replacements to rename "nickname" to "maternal surname" and "last name" to "paternal surname" - this is probably the best option if you can do without the nickname field.

[apater]

A couple options:
- Add a custom field
- Use word replacements to rename "nickname" to "maternal surname" and "last name" to "paternal surname" - this is probably the best option if you can do without the nickname field.

The idea is to get this built into civicrm. I mean, this only affects, what? 50 million people in the US and another 500 million worldwide?

I don't want to do this as a local hack, because then it will be complicated to convert data once it is (hopefully) built into CiviCRM.

[petednz]

can you pls clarify the benefit of two fields for compound surnames? is it to do with how searching or sorting or addressee tokens are handled

[apater]

can you pls clarify the benefit of two fields for compound surnames? is it to do with how searching or sorting or addressee tokens are handled

Unique identification of clients. Normal practice in languages which use compound surnames. Ability to accommodate individual preference of the client. Clarity. Respect for family history.  Accuracy.

[xavier]

Hi,

I was under the impression that in spain they put both surnames into the last name field in softwares that don't support compound surnames.

From a practical point of view, what are the things you can't do if you put "García Lorca" as the last name?

X+

[apater]

From a practical point of view, what are the things you can't do if you put "García Lorca" as the last name?

Refer to him as Señor Garcia in an automated mail out. I assume you are referring to Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca?

Please see http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,25482.0.html for more info.

[apater]

can you pls clarify the benefit of two fields for compound surnames?

Just to play devils advocate. What is the benefit of having two fields for compound names (first and second) in civicrm?

[Donald Lobo]

my 2 cents from a brief reading of the wikipedia page.

1. Seems like having support for compound surnames is good (and essential) in some parts of the world. There are other parts of the world that may or may not care about this

2.IMO, we should be open to incorporating support for this and upgrading the schema to store this info

3. I do think this should be an optional setting (default to false), where folks who dont care about it, dont have to use it

If we agree with the above, the next steps would be for apater to start working on the patch for this and deciding how extensively he wants to support this

lobo

[xavier]

Just to play devils advocate. What is the benefit of having two fields for compound names (first and second) in civicrm?

Good point, their are few places that benefit from it:
- having a display (first+last) that is different than the sort (last+first)
- on some things, you'd want to display only the last name (eg on a name badge)
- it helps guessing the gender Jane Christopher vs. Christopher Jane
- on some reports/doc, you'd sort by first names others by last

But 

Refer to him as Señor Garcia in an automated mail out.
I assume you are referring to Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca?

Ouch, didn't realise it was so long! and would be needed if you use only one of the two surname in some contexts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca

Btw, on the images' legend, they put "Lorca", not "Garcia". Is there a rule to decide which one you keep?

ie. would it be useful to offer on the salutation the option to choose between Estimado Garcia or Estimado Lorca?


X+

[apater]

I assume you are referring to Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca?

Ouch, didn't realise it was so long! and would be needed if you use only one of the two surname in some contexts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca

Btw, on the images' legend, they put "Lorca", not "Garcia". Is there a rule to decide which one you keep?

While I am not a native spanish speaker, technically it does not appear to be correct to refer to him as Lorca, as that is his maternal surname. If I was to speculate, it may be that, as he moved in socially radical circles, he broke tradition and used his mothers surname. Or, more simply, he is sufficiently famous in the non-spanish speaking world, and mistakingly referred to as Lorca, that the error has become written in stone. Or, Lorca is more poetic, Garcia more prosaic. All of which is a bit off topic, but never mind.

[apater]

my 2 cents from a brief reading of the wikipedia page.

1. Seems like having support for compound surnames is good (and essential) in some parts of the world. There are other parts of the world that may or may not care about this

2.IMO, we should be open to incorporating support for this and upgrading the schema to store this info

3. I do think this should be an optional setting (default to false), where folks who dont care about it, dont have to use it

You will certainly find me on agreement, thank you!

If we agree with the above, the next steps would be for apater to start working on the patch for this and deciding how extensively he wants to support this

How did I see that coming?
Anyway, I have been giving that some thought and, as my coding skills are pretty, um, minimal, I'm working on getting in contact with people with the necessary skills here in Quito to give me a hand.

[Donald Lobo]

great that you anticipated the patch request.

can we be optimistic and anticapate a patch or PR in the next few weeks

lobo

[apater]

Hello again

After an unintended break, I am back on this project. I am in contact with a local php/mysql developer and we are in the process of setting things up on github and looking through the code to see what changes are needed.

Oh, and I have opened a ticket for this feature request: http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-13097

[capo]

After a conversation with Lobo, I've been looking to the changes carefully. As long as the changes affect one of the central core objects and the new functionality affects a very big part of the community, a discussion here is worth. It would be nice to have some additional points of view, so we'll also ask Ixiam and other Spanish and latinoamerican users. If we work fast enough, Lobo says it could be added to the 4.5 version.

First of all, congrats to apater for the work done. I tried to face the problem long time ago, but I wasn’t able to solve it. The patch works nice. Can manage the new values through the API, cat set the field as visible or not, etc. Love it!

Here are my considerations:

• The patch is a very good place to start, as long as the needed functionality is almost completely covered.
• The actual label for Last Name should be maintained, instead of renamed to Parental Last Name.
• Second Last Name is a more generic option than Maternal Last Name, as long as -at least in Spain- you can change the order of your maternal and paternal last names. Plus, in Spain this is the way they appear in our identity cards ("primer apellido" and "segundo apellido").
• If we finally set the name of the new optional field to Second Last Name, the name "last_name_1" maybe confusing. I'd suggest something like "second_last_name", "last_name_2", etc.
• It could be nice to modify the inline edition form (the one at the top of the contact edition form) that allows us to change the name of someone. So, if the Second Last Name setting has been set to true, it should be visible there.
• We must write some tests too, to ensure that future code changes won't disable this new feature.

Take into account that this are just my suggestions. I might be wrong, so don't hesitate to correct me, or to suggest different solutions.