Re^2: Split first and last names

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names

It goes even further.

I know Mies van der Rohe (architect) from a street name, from an address change that once was important to me. I googled his name a long time ago, and that's almost all I remembered.

The name "Mies van der Rohe" follows a common pattern for people with a history from the Netherlands, "$firstname van (der|den) $lastname". So, I almost automatically splitted his name into "Mies" and "van der Rohe". Guess how suprised I was when I heared "Ludwig Mies van der Rohe" recently. OK, so LMvdR surely had two first names, that's quite common here. "Ludwig" and "Mies" must be the first names, and "van der Rohe" the last name. WRONG! "Mies van der Rohe" was his last name.

Just to annoy anyone handling names in computers, he was commonly refered to as "Mies" (which translates to english as lousy, crappy, bad). And to really annoy anyone handling names in computers, he was born as Maria Ludwig Michael Mies. A female first firstname, and no "van der Rohe" at all.

Some more examples: Re^7: regex to return line with name but not if it has a number - and I guess the name of the second example in that post has drastically changed this year.

Alexander

--
Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)

Comment on Re^2: Split first and last names

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Re^3: Split first and last names (References on Parsing Names and Addresses) by eyepopslikeamosquito (Bishop) on Nov 11, 2022 at 05:47 UTC
Great examples! ++ In the midst of a contractual dispute with Warner Bros. in 1993, he changed his stage name to the unpronounceable love symbol and was often referred to as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (or TAFKAP) -- from The late (mindbogglingly brilliant) musician Prince (wikipedia) I find this stuff very entertaining for some reason. I remember being amused in the extreme by Prince's new unpronounceable name. Since I don't have a list of references on this topic yet, I'll remedy that oversight here so as not to disappoint the LanX. :) Further suggestions welcome! References on Parsing Names and Addresses Parsing names: Split first and last names (2022) by Bod - lots of useful replies on the difficulties of parsing human names Re^7: regex to return line with name but not if it has a number (2017) by afoken - examples of names that do not match the simple Firstname Lastname scheme Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names - essay by Patrick McKenzie Names of Sun Yat-sen (wikipedia) RegExp, grabbing first name (2016) by anonymonk regex to return line with name but not if it has a number (2017) by anonymonk Related: Re^2: Procedural vs OOP modules (2021) by Bod - discusses various Lingua modules to help enforce consistent writing styles (I replied) Address de-duplication: De Duping Street Addresses Fuzzily by patrickrock (2005) (my reply) Efficient Fuzzy Matching Of An Address by Limbic~Region (2008) (my reply ... still have nightmares about Captain Cook Cruises ;) CPAN Perl5 Registered Module List: Section 11 "String Processing, Language Text Processing, Parsing and Searching" Lingua::EN::NameParse by Kim Ryan Lingua::EN::AddressParse by Kim Ryan Note: this node was updated with new references long after originally written.	[reply]
Re^3: Split first and last names by LanX (Sage) on Nov 10, 2022 at 22:44 UTC
> I guess the name of the second example in that post has drastically changed this year. You shouldn't confuse legal name and nobility titles. I'm pretty sure I read once, that he signed his marriage papers with Diana simply as "Charles Mountbatten-Windsor". Cheers Rolf _{(addicted to the 𐍀𐌴𐍂𐌻 Programming Language :) Wikisyntax for the Monastery}	[reply]
Re^4: Split first and last names by afoken (Chancellor) on Nov 11, 2022 at 18:56 UTC
You shouldn't confuse legal name and nobility titles. I don't, but many, many, many people entering names and titles in database systems from previous jobs did. And not just nobility titles, but also acacdemic titles, job descriptions ("Accessor des Bergfachs" is my favorite one - I have no clue what that job is, except that it has something to do with mining). I was really happy not to find "cook" and "gardener" as titles ... I'm pretty sure I read once, that he signed his marriage papers with Diana simply as "Charles Mountbatten-Windsor". Sounds plausible. The fully "decorated" name with all titles and middle names would probably fill half a page and take half an hour to write down. Alexander -- Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)	[reply]
Re^5: Split first and last names by LanX (Sage) on Nov 11, 2022 at 21:27 UTC
> take half an hour to write down. Much longer I'd say ... :) From "The Madness of King George (1994)" Prince of Wales: (pointing to medal) What's that one? Duke of York: Oh, I found out the other day that I'm Bishop of Osnabruck ... (pause) Duke of York: Amazing what one is, really. Cheers Rolf _{(addicted to the 𐍀𐌴𐍂𐌻 Programming Language :) Wikisyntax for the Monastery}	[reply]


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