Tech Forum

Perhaps guidance needs sending to clerks in UK and Europe stating to NOT change the regular name fields in MLS, but to ONLY change the preferred name fields; and stating that preferred names will be supported in MLS.

Otherwise I can see that some clerks would change the official name for members in order to affect what is shown in the directory.

Why in the world must we go through the ward clerk to change our preferred names? It should be a simple click and edit to get rid of middle names or change Charles Edward to Chuck. I sort of understand the last name issue - prefer to have the official record changed to reflect the correct legal last name - but getting rid of middle names or changing to abbreviations should be permitted by individual members without requiring them to go through the ward clerk.

cewiseman wrote:Why in the world must we go through the ward clerk to change our preferred names?

Because the programming development of the new directory has not yet included the capability for the member to make that change on-line. Will it? We don't know.

cewiseman wrote:It should be a simple click and edit to get rid of middle names or change Charles Edward to Chuck. I sort of understand the last name issue - prefer to have the official record changed to reflect the correct legal last name - but getting rid of middle names or changing to abbreviations should be permitted by individual members without requiring them to go through the ward clerk.

I agree that a member should be able to use the technology available to input a requested change to their preferred name. But I do not agree a member should be able to make the change directly since it would be easy to violate Church standards when entering free text data. To maintain supervision of changes I think the member should be able to make a change much the same way a photo is added or changed for the new directory - the change is made to the on-line profile but must be approved by the clerk before the change is actually applied.

jdlessley wrote:Because the programming development of the new directory has not yet included the capability for the member to make that change on-line. Will it? We don't know.

Hope so. It was available in the Classic directory, so this technically is a step backward.

Of course, the display of the full name or the preferred name is so inconsistent at this point that it is hard to know which to use.

lajackson wrote:Hope so. It was available in the Classic directory, so this technically is a step backward.

It has been so long since I used the classic directory that I cannot remember what functions it had. I thought that for the classic directory only website administrators could make any changes to displayed names.

jdlessley wrote:It has been so long since I used the classic directory that I cannot remember what functions it had. I thought that for the classic directory only website administrators could make any changes to displayed names.

No, users could change their "first" names in their profiles.

We have had a few sisters in our ward who are divorced and want to use their maiden name as their last name. It was necessary to:
1. Change the preferred last name on the individual record in MLS
2. Change the household name on the household record in MLS
in order to get it to show up properly on the lds.org online directory. We never change the full legal name and it works great.

In order to be complete, they can also go to https://ldsaccount.lds.org/sign-in/go/p ... ummary.jsf and change their display name. This changes the way their name will be displayed in some applications (on lds.org?) though I'm not sure which. See http://tech.lds.org/wiki/LDS_Account.

We are also seeing the same thing - and the spanish and some german members have quite a few "middle" names.

The preferred name would be much better for the Online Directory.

The form of a members name should follow the wishes of the member (unless for some reason inappropriate). When we register for LDS Account we should be able to state our display/preferred name, which after review by the Ward Clerk for propriety, be used in the Directory for all purposes. There is no good reason to require the Clerk to enter the preferred name for every member. Following the procedure in Calendar, the member should be able to insert his/her display/preferred name, and after review, it will appear in Directory for all purposes. The Directory is for member and priesthood use and view. The official name in membership records does not need to be displayed for the purposes of the Directory.

raleighj wrote:The form of a members name should follow the wishes of the member (unless for some reason inappropriate). When we register for LDS Account we should be able to state our display/preferred name, which after review by the Ward Clerk for propriety, be used in the Directory for all purposes. There is no good reason to require the Clerk to enter the preferred name for every member. Following the procedure in Calendar, the member should be able to insert his/her display/preferred name, and after review, it will appear in Directory for all purposes. The Directory is for member and priesthood use and view. The official name in membership records does not need to be displayed for the purposes of the Directory.

Thanks for posting your suggestion. I personally like the idea, but I would note that what you suggest will require significant design and development work to implement. The capability for the ward clerk to enter the preferred name in MLS exists right now. So for now, there actually is a good reason to require the ward clerk to enter the preferred name -- it's the only way it can be done!

Perhaps someone on the development team will see your suggestion here, but I would recommend that you use the Submit Feedback link on LDS.org to submit your suggestion. That way it will get routed to the appropriate people.