Data Dictionary > Referenced Material > AAMVA Person Name Rule 2008

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AAMVA Person Name Rule

AAMVA Person Name Rule 2008

This new Person Name Rule replaces the earlier edition of the name rule. The main difference between them, is the earlier rule used a single field with "@" characters delimiting the components of the name and this new rule uses separate sub-fields for each component of the name.

Components of the Name

Each part of the name is held in an individual component field as described below. Note that the labels on the fields in the structure column are generic identifiers. The example column shows the labels used in one of the groups of name elements:

 

Structure

Length

 

 

Example Elements

Group_Name: all the components in a name

 

 

Person Name Group (BPENGP)

 

First_Name

up to 40

 

 

Person First Name (BPENFT)

 

Middle_Name(s)

up to 35

 

 

Person Middle Name (BPENMD)

 

Last_Name

up to 40

 

 

Person Last Name (BPENLT)

 

Suffix

up to 5

 

 

Person Suffix (BPENSX)

 

Truncation_Code for the First_Name

1

 

 

Person First Name Truncation Code (BPENTF)

 

Truncation_Code for the Middle_Name(s)

1

 

 

Person Middle Name Truncation Code (BPENTM)

 

Truncation_Code for the Last_Name

1

 

 

Person Last Name Truncation Code (BPENTL)

 

Transliteration_Code for the First_Name

1

 

 

Person First Name Transliteration (BPENRF)

 

Transliteration_Code for the Middle_Name(s)

1

 

 

Person Middle Name Transliteration (BPENRM)

 

Transliteration_Code for the Last_Name

1

 

 

Person Last Name Transliteration (BPENRL)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following rules apply to these fields:

  1. Name components that are longer than the allowed field lengths are truncated as described in the Truncation section below.
  2. If an individual has only a single name, the name is stated in the Last_Name field and the First and Middle Name fields are omitted.
  3. The Truncation_Code for the First_Name field is present if and only if the First_Name field is present.
  4. The Truncation_Code for the Last_Name field is present if and only if the Last_Name field is present.
  5. The Truncation_Code for the Middle_Name(s) field is present if and only if the Middle_Name(s) field is present.
  6. The Transliteration_Code for the First_Name field is present if and only if the First_Name field is present.
  7. The Transliteration_Code for the Last_Name field is present if and only if the Last_Name field is present.
  8. The Transliteration_Code for the Middle_Name(s) field is present if and only if the Middle_Name(s) field is present.
  9. Any field not used is omitted.

Allowable Characters

1. The First_Name, Last_Name and Middle_Name(s) fields, use  a subset of the AAMVA Printable Characters. Within these names the following characters can be used:

  1. Letters: a to z and A to Z. 
    • Uppercase, lowercase and mixed cases are allowed (e.g. the First_Name fields "John", "JOHN" or "john" are all valid and have the same meaning).
    • Only letters from the Latin (i.e. English) alphabet are allowed.  Non-Latin letters are transliterated to Latin letters, see the Printable Characters section for more details. Any remaining non-Latin letter must be dropped.
  2. Numeric Digits: 0 to 9.
  3. Special characters: The following special characters may be used in a name. Any other character must be dropped from the names.

 

Name

Character

 

Name

Character

 

Name

Character

 

Space

 

 

Plus sign

+

 

Commercial at

@

 

Exclamation mark

!

 

Comma

,

 

Reverse solidus

\

 

Quotation mark

"

 

Hyphen-minus

-

 

Low line

_

 

Number sign

#

 

Full stop / Period

.

 

Grave accent

`

 

Percent sign

%

 

Solidus

/

 

Left curly bracket

{

 

Ampersand

&

 

Colon

:

 

Vertical line

|

 

Apostrophe

'

 

Semicolon

;

 

Right curly bracket

}

 

Left parenthesis

(

 

Equals sign

=

 

Tilde

~

 

Right parenthesis

)

 

Greater-than sign

>

 

 

 

 

Asterisk

*

 

Question mark

?

 

 

 

2. Spaces in the First_Name, Last_Name, Middle_Name(s) and Suffix fields:

  1. Trailing spaces are allowed but have no meaning. A trailing character is the character that appears at the rightmost position in a field.
  2. Leading spaces are not allowed. A leading character is the character that appears at the leftmost position in a field.
  3. Except for trailing spaces, a space character may not appear adjacent to another space character.

3. The following formatting rules apply to the Suffix field:

When present, this field may only contain one of the values shown in the following table.

 

Suffix

Meaning or Synonym

JR

Junior

SR

Senior or Esquire

1ST

First

2ND

Second

3RD

Third

4TH

Fourth

5TH

Fifth

6TH

Sixth

7TH

Seventh

8TH

Eighth

9TH

Ninth

4. The following formatting rules apply to the Truncation and Transliteration Code fields:

When present, this field may only contain one of the values shown in the following table.

 

Code

Meaning

T

Field content Truncated/Transliterated

N

Field content not Truncated/Transliterated

U

Unknown whether or not the field content was altered.

This value is used when transitioning from an older name rule where the information is not available.

Field Length and Truncation Rules

For all name fields, characters are eliminated from a field in the following order until the name fits into the field:

  • Starting from the right and moving to the left, eliminate spaces adjacent to hyphens
  • Starting from the right and moving to the left, eliminate apostrophes
  • Starting from the right and moving to the left, eliminate any remaining special characters, excluding:
    • Hyphens
    • Remaining spaces
    • Characters immediately following a hyphen or a space

Example: If a person's middle names are "V'Erylongmiddlename01 V'Erylongmiddlename02 Marie – Louise" (58 characters), the truncation sequence will progress as follows:

  • Remove spaces adjacent to hyphens, resulting in "V'Erylongmiddlename01 V'Erylongmiddlename02 Marie–Louise" (56 characters)
  • Remove apostrophes, resulting in "VErylongmiddlename01 VErylongmiddlename02 Marie–Louise" (54 characters)
  • Remove other characters as allowed, resulting in "VErylongmiddlename01 VErylongmi M–L" (35 characters)

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