Keep 1st and 2nd last names separated

[capo]

Days ago I posted a topic (http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,25273.0.html) in the "Hola CiviCRM" forum asking about the best  way to keep separated 1st and 2nd last names in CiviCRM:

To separate 1st and 2nd last names is a standard and normalised way to save the data. The information has more quality keeping them separated. Even in our Spanish ID's both last names are separated.

The most important reason is that if you've them separated, you can join them whenever you want. Nevertheless, if you join them, you can't allways separate them. For example, if someone has a complex last name (as is my case), you won't know how to separate it.

Example:
    Name: Carlos
    1st Last Name: Capote
    2nd Last Name: Pérez Andreu

If we save last names in one single field, we'd have: "Last name = Capote Pérez Andreu", so we wouldn't know where to split it.
A second reason is that, in mailings, we use to call people by their name and first last name (in my case: Carlos Capote).
A third reason, is that we're migrating from a system where we've both fields and we don't want to lost quality information during the migration.

Following a suggestion of @Upperholme, I (re)post the topic here, linking to the original, in order to try to reach more people, as he said:

If this is an issue that affects Spanish users, and therefore perhaps many Latin American users as well as European Spanish, the potential size of the affected user group is substantial. Plus of course this may well be something that affects other nations also.

So, the question is, what "academical" solution would you suggest? I mean, is there any kind of solution that may solve this problem for the hole "2 last names" comminity?

In my original post, I wrote the ideas I have:

• Use 2nd name as 1st (or 2nd) last name
• Create a custom field and modify the "personal info template"

What do you think about it?

Thanks for your attention

[Erik Hommel]

I would solve it with a custom field. Generically speaking I could imagine having a second name as an additonal field in core, with a localization setting to use it?

[mathieu]

Not ideal, but there are also some fields which are often not used, such as "nickname", which can be enabled from the admin->preferences.

You can then:
*  change the label (string replacements)
* position it in the edit/view correctly, and
* use a custom "display name" format so that it displays correctly in lists, mailings, etc.

[Erik Hommel]

I agree you can use the nickname, the advantage of using the custom field is that you do not run the risk of getting into weird situations with the standard functionality. I dislike 'abusing' standard fields :-)

[capo]

In fact, I was looking for a general solution (because there's a big number of users affected). That's also why I neither wanted to "abuse" standard fields. Maybe they are some installations already using nickname, so if I my solution involves using it, these users won't profit from it.

It seems the only general solution is to create it as a core field (obviusly I can't do it).

[apater]

Hola Capo

What did you end up doing? I'm setting up CiviCRM for some foundations here in Ecuador and need this to work correctly from the start.  I'd rather use some agreed upon standard then invent my own thing.

[alonjr]

Capo, I am also trying to solve this issue as I am working to implement CiviCRM in a Barcelona ONG.
Does it make sense to use the middle_name field as the second last name?