Practical International Data Management - Forms of Address

Definition

Forms of address, also known as honorifics or salutations, appear before or after personal names and may be indicative of:

• gender: Mr, Herr, Frau, Ms
• marital status: Miss, Mrs
• social status: Lord, Duke, Baron
• academic achievement or professional status: Dr, Professor, Mr, Dipl.-Ing.
• age: Mg, Mo, U, Ma, Daw
• formality of communication:Gospodin, Mátushka

Increasing numbers of people prefer to use no form of address.

Examples

In Japan the form of address is written after the personal name:

   Yamata sensei
   Watanabe ishi

Processing

• Don't assume that the form of address only appears before a personal name
• Don't assume that the form of address always, and only, indicates gender
• In many cultures, using forms of address that indicate marital status are regarded as archaic and insulting, and shouldn't be used
• A person may have a whole string of forms of addresses: Herr Professor Doktor Schmidt. The order of the forms of address is related to academic grade (higher first) and level of the academic institution concerned (higher first), so respect the order that the person concerned uses and store the information in that way.
• A single form of address may appear in different ways and in different places in the personal name string: Dr and Ph.D. for example, so a person may in one context be Dr John Smith and in another John Smith Ph.D.
• Note that forms of address may also be names. For example, Mister is a given name in the United States; Sayed/Sayed is an Arabic given name which may be translated as Mister.