What's in a Name
What's in a Name
Analysis of Name Properties in DBpedia.
Note: this page was first edited it in emacs orgmode, then converted with
pandoc prop-names.org -w mediawiki >prop-names.mw
--VladimirAlexiev 18:49, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Believe ot or not, DBO has 86 properties called "name". Isn't that a bit too much? Yes it is, and we need to fix this situation to avoid confusion.
If you ponder on the prop names below without reading my explanations, you'll appreciate the importance of documenting every property and class. I don't mean something complicated: just explain the purpose and when it's used.x
Name Forms and Lifecycle
People's names change during their lifetime. Eg Cranach was born Lucas Maler (after the profession of his father), was renamed Lucas Cranach when he became famous (after his birthplace Cronach), then art historians stated calling him Lucas Cranach the Elder after his son (also Lucas Cranach) became an artist.
In some cultural heritage documentation systems (eg CIDOC CRM), name allocation and usage across time and space can be tracked with separate nodes. In DBpedia the situation is simpler, but we still need several name properties. But not as many as we find here! Actually this list is relatively short but is crucially important, since these props are used numerous times (everything has a name, right)?
| foaf:name | Use for Person & Organisation | ok |
| dbo:name | Use for everything except Person & Organisation | check |
| dbo:names | Bug, came from some Greek Astronomy props | #7 |
Birth, previous, original, historical, former, old:
| dbo:birthName | TODO | |
| dbo:formerName | TODO | |
| dbo:historicalName | TODO | |
| dbo:oldName | TODO | |
| dbo:originalName | TODO | |
| dbo:previousName | TODO | |
| dbo:sameName | TODO | |
| dbo:presentName | Duplicate of name | ? |
Other names
| dbo:officialName | ||
| dbo:alternativeName | ||
| dbo:otherName | ||
| dbo:longName | ||
| dbo:commonName | Eg "cat" | |
| dbo:scientificName | Eg "Felix catus" (biology) |
Language-specific Names
There are thousands upon thousands of languages in the world. IANA has defined lang tags for a lot of them, following ISO2 and ISO3 codes, extending, and allowing custom extensions).
Rather than making up a new property for each language in the world, we must use one property, with proper lang tag.
Eg instead of
dbr_fr:belgrade name "Belgrade"; cyrilliqueName "Белград".
We should make this:
dbr_fr:belgrade name "Belgrade"@fr, "Белград"@sr-Cyrl.
The Template:PropertyMapping has a parameter "language" just for that purpose. See eg Getty LOD documentation for lang tag examples, and a script to fetch the IANA registry to a table.
We have to investigate the use of these of each case below. Eg:
- germanName should be fixed but alemmanicName might have some cultural significance
- algerianName should be fixed but algerianSettlementName should be investigated
- frenchName should be fixed to "name" but frenchNickname might become otherName@fr or something like this
- some of them might map to originalName (plus language), depending on how they're used
All these are tracked under #15
| dbo:alemmanicName | ?? | |
| dbo:algerianName | #15 | |
| dbo:algerianSettlementName | ?? | |
| dbo:arabicName | #15 | fixed |
| dbo:arberishtName | ||
| dbo:calabrianName | ||
| dbo:chaouiName | ||
| dbo:cornishName | ||
| dbo:cyrilliqueName | #15 | fixed |
| dbo:dutchName | ||
| dbo:englishName | ||
| dbo:finnishName | ||
| dbo:frenchName | ||
| dbo:frenchNickname | ||
| dbo:frioulanName | ||
| dbo:gaelicName | ||
| dbo:germanName | ||
| dbo:greekName | ||
| dbo:irishName | ||
| dbo:italianName | ||
| dbo:japanName | ||
| dbo:kabyleName | ||
| dbo:kanjiName | ||
| dbo:ladinName | Mapping fr:Infobox Commune d'Italie nom ladin, see [Ladin language] | |
| dbo:luxembourgishName | ||
| dbo:manxName | ||
| dbo:maoriName | ||
| dbo:messierName | ||
| dbo:moldavianName | ||
| dbo:mozabiteName | ||
| dbo:occitanName | ||
| dbo:sardinianName | ||
| dbo:scotishName | ||
| dbo:scotsName | ||
| dbo:scottishName | ||
| dbo:sicilianName | ||
| dbo:tamazightName | ||
| dbo:tamazightSettlementName | ||
| dbo:touaregName | ||
| dbo:touaregSettlementName | ||
| dbo:welshName |
To Investigate
| dbo:colonialName | ||
| dbo:informationName | ||
| dbo:leaderName | ||
| dbo:legislativePeriodName | ||
| dbo:meshName | ||
| dbo:municipalityRenamedTo | Anything can be renamed, why "municipality". Is that the current name? | |
| dbo:namedByLanguage | ||
| dbo:personName | ||
| dbo:phonePrefixName | Say again? | |
| dbo:policeName | ||
| dbo:reignName | ||
| dbo:sharingOutName | dc:type of a part Place | ref |
| dbo:sharingOutPopulationName | ||
| dbo:signName | ||
| dbo:statName | ||
| dbo:subdivisionName |
Is Ok
| dbo:nameAsOf | Date when "name" was first assigned | |
| dbo:filename | Filename of a Sound | see #19 |
| dbo:iupacName | IUPAC name of a Chemical | |
| dbo:ngcName | NGC name of a CelestialBody | |
| dbo:fuelTypeName | fuelType of PowerStation as literal | |
| dbo:peopleName | Name for the people of a certain place, eg Bulgaria->Bulgarian | |
| dbo:spouseName | Spouse of someone as literal | |
| dbo:teamName | Name of a School's athletic teams | |
| dbo:nameDay | Name-day of a saint (a xsd:gMonthDay) | |
| dbo:namedAfter | Person after whom something is named (eg School, Disease, Theorem etc) | |
| dbo:colourName | The colors of a party, school, taxon(?) |
Not Ok
| dbo:genereviewsname | Bad capitalization (camelCase) | #18 |
| dbo:circuitName | replace with raceTrack | bug |
