First name Van (which is also sometimes a prefix) not handled correctly #24

Activity

1. derek73

   added

   bug

   on Dec 4, 2014
2. derek73 commented on Dec 4, 2014

   

   derek73

   on Dec 4, 2014

   Owner

   More actions

   This would be considered a bug if "van" is more common as a first name than it is as a prefix to last names, e.g. "Vincent Van Gogh". I'm not actually sure which is more common, probably depends more on wether you're dealing with more Asian vs European names.

   You can work around it for your dataset by adjusting the prefixes constant to remove "van", e.g.:

   >>>  from nameparser.config import CONSTANTS
   >>>  CONSTANTS.prefixes.remove('van')
   

   It does seem if there are only 2 name parts like in your example, it would be correct more often if we assume it is a first name. I guess that's probably true for all the prefixes, so maybe a change we could make to the parser.
3. htoothrot commented on Dec 4, 2014

   

   htoothrot

   on Dec 4, 2014

   Author

   More actions

   I'm of the opinion that assuming it's a first name when there are only 2 parts is an improvement, as even in the case where it is only a last name like "Van Gogh", it's still wrong in saying all of "Van Gogh" is the first name.

   I did consider removing that prefix, but the names I'm handling aren't primarily Asian, so it would just move the problem.
4. derek73 commented on Dec 4, 2014

   

   derek73

   on Dec 4, 2014

   Owner

   More actions

   this might do it
   cc98231
5. htoothrot commented on Dec 14, 2014

   

   htoothrot

   on Dec 14, 2014

   Author

   More actions

   @derek73 I tested this branch and it seems to work as intended. Thank you for the work you have done.

   I also noticed this when reviewing some of the names (this issue was already present before this change though, so I might ought to open a new issue):

   >>> HumanName('Van Nguyen III')
   14: <HumanName : [
       title: '' 
       first: 'Van Nguyen' 
       middle: '' 
       last: 'III' 
       suffix: ''
       nickname: ''
   ]>
   >>> 
   
6. jonathanmorgan commented on Feb 28, 2015

   

   jonathanmorgan

   on Feb 28, 2015

   More actions

   Any idea when this will make it into a release? I am running into this particular problem as well, trying to figure out what default behavior for "two word names with first word that could be first name or prefix" I should plan for.

   Thanks!

   Jon Morgan
7. derek73

   added this to the v0.3.4 milestone on Mar 2, 2015
8. derek73

   self-assigned this

   on Mar 2, 2015
9. derek73

   closed this as completedin 89f7d98on Mar 2, 2015
10. jonathanmorgan commented on Mar 3, 2015

    

    jonathanmorgan

    on Mar 3, 2015

    More actions

    Thank you very much! If there is ever anything I can do to help with this project, let me know. I work with news content, and having a concrete, standardized way of parsing names, then using the parsed result to generate full name strings has been a substantial help.
11. derek73

    added a commit that references this issue on Jul 29, 2026

    Classify the ideographic iteration mark as Han (#272)

    ...

    3b53076
12. sauliusbc

    added a commit that references this issue on Aug 22, 2026

    Classify 〆 (U+3006) as Han

    ...

    c78adde