Should Doe, Jane nee Smith MA read MA as a credential? The maiden name keeps it, where it gives up PhD and Jr. #533
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on Sep 20, 2026 Closed by #534.
The clause now ends at a trailing credential, and says so.
parse("Jane Doe nee Smith MA")gives maidenSmith, suffixMA, which is how 1.4.0 read theMAand howJane Doe MAhas read all along.Jane Doe nee Smith Makeeps maidenSmith Ma, the writing declining it as it does outside a clause. Either way the decision is reported assuffix-or-name.The two questions this issue asked: yes to both. The words-to-spare rule and the case lean apply at the end of a clause, through the double check #424 built for the numeral, asked of the word itself: the clause gives the word up only where the name left behind would read THAT word as a credential. That is what keeps
John née Jones Smith Mawhole, the name #424 left the acronym out to protect.The objection raised here, a maiden name of one word having nothing to spare, is answered by a floor: the stop never takes the first word after the marker.
Jane Doe nee MAkeeps maidenMAand reports. That differs on purpose fromnée PhDandnée V, where a certain post-nominal makes the marker decline.After a family comma the clause is read by #531's slot, carve-out included:
Doe, Jane nee Smith DOgives suffixDO,Doe, Jane nee Smith dokeeps its maiden name, andDoe, Jane nee Smith MA dokeepsMA dotogether. One name is a restoration rather than a change:John Smith nee Jones R.A.I.gives suffixR.A.I.again, as 2.3.0 did, the unreleased 2.4 work having moved it into the maiden name.Measured over 2,016 generated pairs, a clause and the same name without it disagreed about the trailing word 984 times before and never after, outside one accepted class: a head written wholly in one case cannot see the case of a word inside the clause (
DOE, JANE nee Smith Mareads the credential). One invariant bounds all of it: a word the clause gives up ends the parse insuffix, or the clause keeps it and reports. SoDoe, Dr. nee Smith MAandJane Doe, Jr nee Smith MAkeep maidenSmith MA, the take leaving no name word for a reader, and a delimited clause,Jane Doe (nee Smith MA), is settled by its delimiters and reports nothing.Not reached, and asked separately: a title after the clause.
Jane Doe nee Smith MA Prof.is unchanged.The rule is
rules.md#M2; the reasoning is underM2andS2indocs/design/decisions.md.- added 4 commits that reference this issue
on Sep 22, 2026 - added 9 commits that reference this issue
on Oct 8, 2026
After a maiden marker, an unambiguous suffix comes out of the maiden name and an ambiguous credential acronym does not, and nothing is reported.
It is not a comma question:
Jane Doe nee Smith MAgives maidenSmith MAtoo, andJohn Smith nee Jones R.A.I.gives maidenJones R.A.I.whereJohn Smith R.A.I.gives suffixR.A.I.and reports. 1.4.0 had no maiden field; it read theMAand theR.A.I.as suffixes.Why now. #531 made the end of the given part after a family comma read an ambiguous credential as the comma-less spelling does, and report it either way. The maiden clause takes its words before that slot exists, so this is now the one trailing position where a word of that class (
ba,do,ed,jd,ma, and dotted acronyms) is read in silence. #530 movedJohn Smith nee Jones R.A.I.into the maiden field from the other side.The question. Should the words-to-spare rule and the case lean apply at the end of a maiden clause, so
Doe, Jane nee Smith MAgives maidenSmith, suffixMA, whileDoe, Jane nee Smith Makeeps maidenSmith Ma? And whichever way it reads, should it reportsuffix-or-name?For: every other trailing position now reads this way, the clause already gives up
PhDandJr., and a degree is not part of a birth name. Against: a maiden name of one word has nothing to spare (Doe, Jane nee MA), and two-word birth surnames ending inMaorDoare real, so the lean would be carrying the whole decision in one-case records.Names to decide against
Doe, Jane nee Smith MA/Jane Doe nee Smith MA: maidenSmith MA, silentDoe, Jane nee Smith Ma: the cased contrast, a name under either answerDOE, JANE NEE SMITH MA: one case, no evidence in the writingDoe, Jane nee MA: nothing to spareJohn Smith nee Jones R.A.I.: the dotted halfDoe, Jane nee Smith PhD,Doe, Jane nee Smith Jr.: controls, already suffixRelated: #531, #530.
Found during #531 (PR #532).