Skip to content

Should a credential written in its own mixed case (FREng, CEng) end a name as the credential? Jane Doe CEng FIET reads family 'CEng' #1053

Open

Description

@derek73

What happens. A post-nominal whose conventional spelling is mixed case reads as the name where it ends one, because rules/S6 reads a Title-case-like spelling of a listed-or-shaped word as a name's writing. freng is listed as an ambiguous credential (Freng is a surname, US Census 2010 187), and CEng is not listed at all:

parse("Jane Doe FREng")          →  middle 'Doe', family 'FREng'
parse("Amelia Gould CEng FIET")  →  middle 'Gould', family 'CEng', suffix 'FIET'
parse("Jane Doe, FREng")         →  suffix 'FREng'   (the comma reaches it)
parse("Jane Doe FRS FREng")      →  suffix 'FRS FREng'   (a run behind a listed credential reaches it)

Where it shows. govuk-people (GOV.UK display names): FREng 3 names, CEng 3 (… CEng FIET, … BEng(Hons) CEng FRAeS). ORCID's comma shapes: Dr. Henry Osabohien, CEng → given 'CEng' (2 names).

Why a vocabulary listing does not fix it (measured 2026-11-03 over every local-corpus name holding CEng, 28 names):

  • as an ambiguous credential with a family reading (the freng listing): the 3 GOV.UK names stay family 'CEng'; 2 ORCID comma names fixed; 15 names gain a suffix-or-name report;
  • as a plain credential: fixes those 5 but breaks the surname Ceng in 9 (Changbing Ceng, Mr Guanghui Ceng → family 'Guanghui', Zeliha Ceng). Ceng is a common Chinese surname: Wikidata family 2,483+, ORCID family boxes 43, PatentsView 8.

The question. Should a listed credential written exactly in its own conventional mixed-case spelling (its case mask, or a mask the vocabulary records without applying it) read as the credential at the bare end, while the surname writing (Freng, Ceng) and capitals keep today's reading? That is a rule in S6, not a vocabulary edit (decisions/S6 and decisions/suffix-acronym-collisions' 2026-10-30 entry hold it open). ceng would then be listed beside it.

A second, smaller question carried over from #965. An unlisted capitals word behind a listed credential joins its run (Jane Doe CBE XYZ → suffix 'CBE XYZ'), but one in front of it does not (Jane Doe XYZ CBE → family 'XYZ'). decisions/S8 holds it open; one ORCID name shows it (John Smith AO KC → family 'AO'; AO is also a Chinese surname, Wikidata family 124+).

Follows #965.

Activity

  1. added this to the 3.1 milestone on Nov 4, 2026
  2. added
    vocabularyPer-word vocabulary model and language packs
    on Nov 4, 2026
  3. self-assigned this
    on Nov 4, 2026
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

vocabularyPer-word vocabulary model and language packs

Projects

No projects

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions