In a post 5.0 world, renaming firstname and surname would be an expensive, backwards incompatible change. Instead the TC decided a reasonable compromise would be to allow givenname as an alternative to firstname. The argument being that surname *is* a reasonable tagname, but firstname is too western centric.

That went over well, and is not backwards incompatible.

Index: pool.rnc =================================================================== --- pool.rnc (revision 8381) +++ pool.rnc (working copy) @@ -2974,11 +2974,9 @@ element personname { db.personname.attlist, (db._text - | (db.honorific - | db.firstname - | db.surname - | db.lineage - | db.othername)+) + | (db.honorific | db.firstname | db.surname | db.lineage |
db.othername)+ + | (db.honorific | db.givenname | db.surname | db.lineage |
db.othername)+ + ) } }

@@ -3893,6 +3891,28 @@ # ======================================================================

[ + db:refname [ "givenname" ] + db:refpurpose [ "The given name of a person" ] +] +div { + + db.givenname.role.attribute = attribute role { text } + + db.givenname.attlist = + db.givenname.role.attribute? + & db.common.attributes + & db.common.linking.attributes + + db.givenname = + element givenname { + db.givenname.attlist, + db._text + } +} + +# ====================================================================== + +[ db:refname [ "surname" ] db:refpurpose [ "A family name; in western cultures the last name" ] ]

Be seeing you, norm