Member Avatar for nadiam

hey guys. so whats really getting me stumped is the amount of salutations theres are and as some of you are web developers i would just like your opinions/suggestions.

so you have a basic form that asks for salutations, first name, last name etc. salutations there are lots and sometimes one person can have many salutations like for example:
Yang Amat Mulia(salutation) Tunku(salutation) Tan Sri(salutation) Imran ibni al-Marhum Tuanku Ja’afar al-Haj

multiple salutations in one name. yet some salutations are hereditary/reserved for royal families like the Tunku and then the Yang Amat Mulia means your royal highness which is also a salutation(right?) and Tan Sri a salutation given by a state. so if we are gonna have a drop down list of salutation and people are suppose to fill it in which one are they gonna pick? how is the data gonna be structured? do we list all possible salutations? because i found a website where someone listed all(and i mean ALL coz theres so much) of the salutations. and if one person is gonna have multiples how to choose? or do i do multiple drop down list for salutation but that just seems redundant(right?).

help

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by almostbob

Dani AI

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Short summary and practical guidance.

The core problem is that honorifics and titles vary by culture, can be stacked, and sometimes have a specific order. As noted, an exhaustive dropdown quickly becomes brittle; 's minimal idea to ignore rank is a valid low-effort fallback. Practical design should balance accuracy with low friction.

Pragmatic UI patterns to consider:

  • Minimal: one "Full name" field and no required title. This is simplest and avoids forcing users into the wrong choice.
  • Controlled: a small, locale-aware dropdown of common prefixes plus an "Other" text field for anything unusual or multiple titles.
  • Flexible: a tag/autocomplete input that accepts multiple titles in the entered order (shown as chips). This preserves real-world complexity, supports reordering, and keeps data explicit for display and sorting.

Store both the original input and structured pieces. Example storage patterns:

-- normalized table for multiple titles
CREATE TABLE person_title (
  id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  person_id INTEGER NOT NULL REFERENCES person(id),
  title_text VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  title_type VARCHAR(50),
  display_order INTEGER NOT NULL
);

-- or keep titles as JSONB on person
ALTER TABLE person ADD COLUMN titles JSONB; -- array of {text,type,order}
ALTER TABLE person ADD COLUMN display_name VARCHAR(255);
ALTER TABLE person ADD COLUMN raw_name TEXT; -- preserve exact original

Notes and cautions: preserve the raw string for display and legal checks; preserve entered order; provide locale-aware suggestions; expose a simple fallback for mail merges (e.g., use first name when a greeting title is unknown); avoid trying to hard-code every possible cultural title into a single select. For forms that collect legal identity, require explicit structured fields (given name, family name) alongside any title fields.

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Member Avatar for nadiam

nvm.

Member Avatar for almostbob

a simple, "Excusing all rank, please enter your name" may work

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