Good morning,
Currently Geni does not accommodate Philippine naming conventions well, leading different people to enter Philippine full names using a chaotic variety of approaches. My explanation is a lengthy one, though I believe I have distilled the potential solution into one single request.
Most Philippine names follow the following convention:
- For men: One or more given names, a middle name which is their mother's maiden name, a surname which is their father's surname. Note that this is not the same as the Spanish or Portuguese systems in which the mother's maiden name is incorporated as part of a person's surname. The Philippine convention in all formal matters is to see the English-language field "Middle name" and enter their mother's maiden name. Filipinos will also expect names to be sorted by their (father's) surname only, and generally treat their middle name the way Americans treat their middle name. For example, my birth name is Kerwin Datu Lawton, in which Datu is my mother's maiden name and Lawton is my father's surname. I will write this as Kerwin Datu Lawton, Kerwin D. Lawton, Kerwin Lawton, K. Lawton, etc., depending on the circumstances. For another example, the current president is Rodrigo Roa Duterte, where Roa is his middle name/mother's maiden name and Duterte is his father's surname. In day-to-day media he is known simply as Rodrigo Duterte.
- For unmarried women, the principle is the same as for unmarried men.
- For married women however, there is a tendency to change both the middle name and the surname at marriage. For example my mother was born Fides Mendoza Datu. Mendoza is her mother's maiden name, and Datu is her father's surname. At marriage, she changed her surname from Datu to Lawton (my father's surname). She also changed her middle name from Mendoza to Datu. So now she is Fides Datu Lawton. Likewise, in day-to-day usage this will be simplified as Fides D. Lawton or Fides Lawton etc. Note this means that married women tend to have the same middle name and surname as their (unmarried) children, as was the case with me. To give another example, the current vice president was born Leonor Sto. Tomas Gerona, where her middle name Sto. Tomas was her mother's maiden name, and her surname Gerona was her father's surname. When she married the politician Jesse Robredo she became Leonor Gerona Robredo, where her middle name Gerona is her maiden name and Robredo is her husband's surname. This is displayed variously as Leonor G. Robredo or Leonor Robredo etc.
- I personally demonstrate a special case, but which helps to qualify the change I believe is necessary. I am male, but upon my parents' divorce I reverted to my mother's names. I changed from Kerwin Datu Lawton to Kerwin Mendoza Datu. In other words, rather than simply revert to my mother's maiden name, I also reverted my middle name to my grandmother's maiden name. (Note this now means some people occasionally think I am my mother's brother!)
You might say that there are ways to hack these naming conventions, for example, for married women to put their birth middle names into the "birth surname" field and things like that. But that overlooks the fact that Filipinos are used to treating their mother's maiden names or their own maiden names as Middle Names in the full legal sense of the word as they are used in the US. In fact it is because of the US administration of the Philippines that this unusual system arose. In any case, whatever hack is used makes a mess of the naming preferences used on Geni. For example, I see a lot of married women in my family tree whose names appear as "Fides Datu Datu" or "Fidela Ordonez Ordonez" because their real middle name is in the middle name field, and their real birth surname is in the birth surname, and Geni has no appreciation of the fact that they are often the same name. At least for the 50 million female Filipinos who are likely to get married one day.
As a result, the very simple change I am requesting is the addition of a "Birth middle name" field. This will allow Filipinos to use Geni in the same way they fill out administrative forms everyday, and prevent them from having to invent an ad hoc system every time a new genealogy enthusiast signs up for Geni.
Kind regards,
Kerwin M. Datu, born Kerwin D. Lawton :)
