Entering a Rufname/nickname

[Scott Baltic]

Is there a standard/accepted way in Reunion, or in genealogical records/software more generally, to indicate what the Germans call a person's Rufname, literally the name someone is called?
This is different from a nickname, in that it's someone's actual name, but often a middle name.
For instance, in Germany in the 1700s and 1800s, it was common for all of the boys in a family to be Johann Something Surname, so Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Christof Bach, etc. Each such male in a family would be known by his middle name, or Rufname. For girls, the default first name seems to often have been Maria, but again, each would have actually been called by her middle name, or by one of them if she had more than one.
I'm running into this with some recent Swedish additions to my Reunion file.
TIA!

[B Jansen]

No, there isn't. It's an oversight. Tamura Jones addresses this explicitly in the proposed Gedcom 5.5.5 standard:

"It is odd that the GEDCOM specification does not support call names. Many Americans have German ancestors and in Germany, people do not just have call names, their rufnamen (call names) are official, recorded in official documents. German genealogy software uses the _RUFNAME record to record these call names."

https://www.gedcom.org/gedcom.html

I have added _RUFNAME to mine.

[eric.vanbeest]

There's no fixed way to do this, and even in the GEDCOM 5.5.5 proposal, there is no standard way to do this.

The issue "we" have with how names are handled in Reunion stems from the limitations of GEDCOM 5.5: one canonical name, and nicknames - that's it. 'Also Known As' - a feature already deprecated in GEDCOM 5.5 - is currently the only way to store alternate spelling or alternate names within Reunion. This was never going to be satisfactory and was apparently known at the time when GEDCOM 5.5 was written; in 1996. The GEDCOM 5.5.5 proposal allows for more than 1 (spelling of) the name, although it still does not specifically address Rufnamen. Or patronyms or matronyms for that matter.

Your options are:
* In the First & Mid Name box, also enter the Rufname but surround it with parentheses or quotes to highlight its p[urpose (for you) - eg. Johann Sebastian "Sebastian"
* Use the nickname attribute in Reunion (dumb, I know... it should be part of the name tab)
* Use the Alias/AKA attribute
* Add an additional 'Fact' field (= attribute) for the person: long name "Rufname", short "rufn", GEDCOM tag "_RUF" . This keeps it clear and separated.

[pforbes]

I use the Fact: Alias/AKA and park it just under the name in the Person Card.


Researching Forbes, Reid, Auclair and Salter.

[genealogist.lily]

I type the other name used in capital letters. To use your example Johann SEBASTIAN Bach, or it could be Johann SEBASTIAN BACH if you set surnames to all caps.

[B Jansen]

* Add an additional 'Fact' field (= attribute) for the person: long name "Rufname", short "rufn", GEDCOM tag "_RUF" . This keeps it clear and separated.

Why on earth would one create a new GEDCOM tag when there's already an established and generally accepted one?

[eric.vanbeest]

I must apologise – the GEDCOM tag should be "_RUFNAME". See here.

[Scott Baltic]

Many thanks to all who replied!
Since posting here, I've learned that a common way the Swedes handle this (I don't know how "official" this is) is to add an asterisk after their version of the Rufname, the tilltalsnamn.
But I wonder whether Reunion might interpret the asterisk as a wild card, or some other problem might arise.