Practical International Data Management - Casing of personal names

Personal names are not universally written with the first letter in upper and the other letters in lower case. Prepositions in names may begin with lower case letters, upper case letters may appear within personal names. Unusual casing is sometimes adopted in names to give them a level of uniqueness. In some cultures surnames are often written in all upper case, also as a means of distinguishing them from other name elements.

Examples

   MacDonald
   Kees van den Broek
   Henry de la FONTAINE
   LEE Kuan Yew
   SueZann

Processing

• Do not force proper casing onto personal names.
• Do not attempt to correct casing after data collection.
• Take measures to ensure that personal name data is cased correctly at the data collection stage.

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