GMEOW Names Module

• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/names
• Tier: core
• Group: core

What This Slice Covers

This slice owns 154 terms and contributes 230 mapping or projection rows. Use it when its terms match the native fact you want to preserve; use the linkage tables to see how those facts leave GMEOW for consumer vocabularies.

Dependencies

• gmeow:slices/agreements
• gmeow:slices/contacts
• gmeow:slices/entities
• gmeow:slices/events
• gmeow:slices/kernel
• gmeow:slices/language
• gmeow:slices/observations
• gmeow:slices/places
• gmeow:slices/temporal

Consumers

• Every named entity across the ontology (P9 anti-colonial, co-equal naming); the mail corpus and contact graph; FOAF / schema.org / Wikidata name exports (via gmeow:hasName); gazetteer and place-naming projections; display-safety / deadname-suppression projections (gmeow:displayable false); and persona-expression register reuse (norms slice) through the gmeow:Register umbrella.

Local Map

Examples

Person Names

• Source: slices/core/names/examples/person-names.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:NamePart, gmeow:NameUsage, gmeow:Person, gmeow:PersonName, gmeow:displayable, gmeow:fullName, gmeow:hasName, gmeow:hasNamePart, gmeow:hasPronounSet, gmeow:namePartGiven

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: names as reified, perspectival appellations. One person
# carries several PersonNames at once — a chosen legal name decomposed into
# parts, a superseded deadname kept but flagged non-displayable (P10:
# suppression, never deletion), and a Han-script form. A NameUsage relator
# records that close friends call them "Rob" in a familiar register — a usage is
# always SOMEONE's, never a global "preferred name" (P9). Pronouns ride the
# person, not any one name.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/names/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .

ex:robin a gmeow:Person ;
    gmeow:hasName ex:nameChosen , ex:nameDead , ex:nameHan , ex:nickRob ;
    gmeow:hasPronounSet gmeow:pronounTheyThem .

# --- The chosen legal name, decomposed into ordered parts (displayable).
ex:nameChosen a gmeow:PersonName ;
    gmeow:fullName "Robin Avery Chen"@en ;
    gmeow:namePurpose gmeow:namePurposeChosen ;
    gmeow:displayable true ;
    gmeow:hasNamePart ex:partGiven , ex:partMiddle , ex:partSurname .

ex:partGiven a gmeow:NamePart ;
    gmeow:namePartType gmeow:namePartGiven ; gmeow:partText "Robin" ; gmeow:partOrder 0 .
ex:partMiddle a gmeow:NamePart ;
    gmeow:namePartType gmeow:namePartMiddle ; gmeow:partText "Avery" ; gmeow:partOrder 1 .
ex:partSurname a gmeow:NamePart ;
    gmeow:namePartType gmeow:namePartSurname ; gmeow:partText "Chen" ; gmeow:partOrder 2 .

# --- The superseded deadname: RETAINED (the record stays auditable) but
#     displayable false, so no projection ever surfaces it (P10).
ex:nameDead a gmeow:PersonName ;
    gmeow:fullName "Jordan Chen"@en ;
    gmeow:namePurpose gmeow:namePurposeDeadname ;
    gmeow:displayable false .

# --- A Han-script form, co-equal with the Latin one — no privileged "main" name.
ex:nameHan a gmeow:PersonName ;
    gmeow:fullName "陳"@und ;
    gmeow:namePurpose gmeow:namePurposeLegal ;
    gmeow:displayable true .

# --- A perspectival NameUsage: among close friends, in a familiar register, this
#     person is called "Rob". The nickname is its own Appellation.
ex:nickRob a gmeow:PersonName ;
    gmeow:fullName "Rob"@en ;
    gmeow:namePurpose gmeow:namePurposeNickname ;
    gmeow:displayable true .

ex:usageRobFriends a gmeow:NameUsage ;
    gmeow:usageNamed ex:robin ;
    gmeow:usageAppellation ex:nickRob ;
    gmeow:usageRegister gmeow:registerIntimate .

Terms

Classes

Properties

Individuals

Linkages

• Rows: 230
• Projection profiles: activitystreams, codemeta, dcterms, doap, foaf, geosparql, ical, iiif, mailmap, markdown, oai_dc, ontolex, qb, schema-org, skos, sosa, vcard, web-annotation
• External vocabularies: as, codemeta, crm, dc, dcterms, doap, foaf, geo, gn, gx, gxv, ical, iiif, lime, oa, ontolex, pleiades, qb, rdf, schema, skos, sosa, vcard, vcardx, wd, wdt

Guide

Names — modelling & interoperability guide

Most data models treat a name as an attribute of a thing: person.familyName = "Smith". That single assumption fails the moment a name changes (marriage, divorce, transition), is context-dependent (Aunt Genny to family, Mrs Smith to students), carries facets (pronouns, honorifics), or belongs to a non-person that can lie about itself (a .pdf that isn't a PDF). GMEOW therefore models a name as a reified, time-bounded, context-scoped, source-attributed relationship — never a bare property.

This guide is longer than most because the model is deliberately non-standard. That non-standardness is the point: standard name models encode assumptions that are, at best, parochial and, at worst, harmful.

The reframe

Two classes carry the whole model:

• gmeow:Appellation (an InformationObject) — the name as an object: its surface form (gmeow:fullName), its structured parts (gmeow:hasNamePart), its language/script, its purpose. Subclasses: gmeow:PersonName, gmeow:Filename, gmeow:PlaceName, gmeow:OrganizationName.
• gmeow:NameUsage (a gufo:Relator) — the use of an appellation in context: who is named, by/among whom, in what register, over what period. This is the same reification idiom as gmeow:Certification and gmeow:InterpersonalRelationship.

The appellation is the noun; the usage is the relator that situates it.

Governing tenet: co-equality of names (anti-colonial naming)

The schema's shape can enact colonial hierarchy. A single canonical name slot plus a bag of alternateNames declares "one identity is the truth, the rest are deviations." GMEOW structurally refuses this.

The project owner is Patrick Colm Audley and 欧德理. These are co-equal full names of one person. 欧德理 is not an alternateName, not a romanization of "Audley", not a footnote — it is a name, family-first (姓 欧 → 名 德理), chosen and meaningful in its own right.

Binding rules, enforced by tests/test_names.py:

1. No primary name. There is deliberately no preferredForDisplay, primaryName, or canonicalName term. A person bears many co-equal gmeow:PersonNames via gmeow:hasName.
2. No derivation arrow between co-equal names. Even where one name arose from sound-mapping another, origin ≠ subordination. gmeow:romanization relates a name only to a transliteration of itself — it never bridges two names.
3. Display selection is locale-relative and symmetric. Match the name's gmeow:nameLanguage / gmeow:nameScript to the audience's locale. For a Sinophone audience 欧德理 is shown and "Patrick" is fallback; for an Anglophone audience, the reverse. Neither is the name.
4. Self-assertion is top authority. A name the named person asserts (gmeow:wasAttributedTo the person) outranks registry/import assertions and must not be silently overwritten — the same root as deadname suppression.
5. No imposed structure. No required given+family split; mononyms and non-Western part systems are first-class; gmeow:partOrder is descriptive, never normative.

@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://example.org/names/> .

# --- Languages ---
ex:langEn a gmeow:Language ; gmeow:languageTag "en" ; gmeow:languageCode "en" .
ex:langZh a gmeow:Language ; gmeow:languageTag "und" ; gmeow:languageCode "zh" .

# --- Person and Names ---
ex:patrick a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:hasName ex:nameLatin , ex:nameHan .   # co-equal

ex:nameLatin a gmeow:PersonName ;
    gmeow:fullName "Patrick Colm Audley"@en ;
    gmeow:nameLanguage ex:langEn ;
    gmeow:namePurpose gmeow:namePurposeLegal ;
    gmeow:wasAttributedTo ex:patrick .

ex:nameHan a gmeow:PersonName ;
    gmeow:fullName "欧德理"@und ;
    gmeow:nameLanguage ex:langZh ;
    gmeow:nameScript "Hans" ;
    gmeow:romanization "Ōu Délǐ"@und ;  # romanization of THIS name only
    gmeow:namePurpose gmeow:namePurposeChosen ;
    gmeow:wasAttributedTo ex:patrick .

Multilingualism is a separate, forthcoming building block. This module is multilingual-ready (co-equal names, per-name language/script, locale-relative display) but the full locale-resolution machinery is deferred.

Structured parts — a multi-cultural value vocabulary

A gmeow:NamePart is a reified, typed, optionally-ordered component. Its kind is the value gmeow:namePartType (open vocabulary, never a subclass — the placeType idiom). gmeow:partOrder records observed order and never implies a given-before-family default.

The authoritative display string is always gmeow:fullName (in the name's natural order). Parts are for matching and decomposition, not for reassembling order — this is the core W3C Personal names around the world lesson.

Context: the NameUsage relator (Aunt Genny)

"Mrs Smith to students, Aunt Genny to family" is one person, one era, two names — distinguished by who is using the name and in what register. A NameUsage binds the parts:

ex:genny a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:hasName ex:gennyMrs , ex:gennyAunt .
ex:gennyMrs  a gmeow:PersonName ; gmeow:fullName "Mrs Smith"@en .
ex:gennyAunt a gmeow:PersonName ; gmeow:fullName "Aunt Genny"@en .

ex:usageStudents a gmeow:NameUsage ;          # formal, toward an audience
    gmeow:usageNamed ex:genny ; gmeow:usageAppellation ex:gennyMrs ;
    gmeow:usageRegister gmeow:registerFormal ; gmeow:usageAudience ex:students .

ex:usageFamily a gmeow:NameUsage ;            # intimate, scoped to a relationship
    gmeow:usageNamed ex:genny ; gmeow:usageAppellation ex:gennyAunt ;
    gmeow:usageRegister gmeow:registerIntimate ;
    gmeow:usageRelationshipScope ex:auntNieceTie .

usageNamer/usageAudience are non-functional and perspectival — a usage is somebody's, never a global fact, so the model never derives a "true" name.

Temporal change & inclusive transition

Names change; former names may be deadnames. Model each life-stage name as its own co-equal PersonName, link the cause to the events module's event spine (gmeow:conferredByEvent → a gmeow:LifeEvent with gmeow:eventType gmeow:eventTypeNameChange / gmeow:eventTypeMarriage), and use the only display control — gmeow:displayable — to suppress a deadname:

ex:alex a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:hasName ex:alexChosen , ex:alexFormer .
ex:alexChosen a gmeow:PersonName ;
    gmeow:fullName "Alex Rivera"@en ; gmeow:namePurpose gmeow:namePurposeChosen ;
    gmeow:displayable true ; gmeow:wasAttributedTo ex:alex .
ex:alexFormer a gmeow:PersonName ;
    gmeow:namePurpose gmeow:namePurposeDeadname ;
    gmeow:displayable false ;                      # consumers MUST honour this
    gmeow:conferredByEvent ex:alexNameChange .

There is no priority ranking — displayable false is a hard suppression, and the chosen name surfaces by locale match. The DeadnameSuppressionShape (shapes/gmeow-shapes.ttl) warns when a superseded/deadname omits the flag.

Pronouns & honorifics — facets, independent of sex

Pronouns and honorifics are first-class, contextual, temporal, and sex/gender independent — there is no axiom tying gmeow:hasPronounSet or gmeow:honorific to gmeow:sex, and test_names.py enforces that nothing ever infers one from the other.

ex:alex gmeow:hasPronounSet ex:faeSet ; gmeow:honorific gmeow:honorificMx .

# Known sets are value individuals (she/her, they/them, xe/xem, ze/hir, …); any
# other set is expressed by filling the five English forms.
ex:faeSet a gmeow:PronounSet ;
    gmeow:pronounSubject "fae" ; gmeow:pronounObject "faer" ;
    gmeow:pronounPossessiveDeterminer "faer" ; gmeow:pronounPossessive "faers" ;
    gmeow:pronounReflexive "faerself" .

The seeded gmeow:PronounSet anchors are a maximal, source-cited inventory of 21 stably-declinable English sets (she/her, he/him, they/them, it/its; Spivak ey/em and Elverson e/em; ze/hir, ze/zir, xe/xem, fae/faer, ae/aer, ve/ver, vi/vir, per/per, ne/nem, thon, co/cos, hu/hum, ki/kin, zhe/zher, generic one) — declensions verified against the pronouns.page structured database — plus three non-specifying values that carry no forms by design: pronounAny, pronounAsk, and the explicit pronounNameOnly ("use my name (no pronouns)") nounself stance. The anchors are not a fence: mint a fresh PronounSet filling the five forms for anything unseeded. The full inventory and sourcing live in identity-mapping.md.

Linkage & projection. gmeow:PronounSet / gmeow:hasPronounSet closeMatch Wikidata's personal pronoun set wd:Q65067284 / personal pronoun wdt:P6553 (verified live; Wikidata's 2025 RfC calls for full-declension sets, aligning with GMEOW's five-form English model). The projection layer renders a set's full five-form declension as one slash-joined string ("she/her/her/hers/herself") for the vCard 4 PRONOUNS property (RFC 9554) via fnPronounSetToText, emitted on the vcardx:pronouns extension term (the W3C vCard RDF ontology has no pronoun predicate). PRONOUNS is free text, so the declension is carried losslessly — no compact "she/her" flatten; only period/standpoint and the non-specifying values are dropped.

Honorifics carry gmeow:honorificPosition (prefix Dr Smith vs suffix Tanaka-san) and gmeow:honorificClass; gender-neutral (Mx) and non-Western (-san, Sri, Sayyid) honorifics are first-class.

Filenames: claim vs reality

A filename's extension claims a content type; the bytes detect one. GMEOW records both as coexisting claims — never a contradiction (no disjointness, no owl:differentFrom, so benign aliasing like pdf/x-pdf can't make the graph inconsistent):

ex:invoiceFile a gmeow:Filename ;
    gmeow:fullName "invoice.pdf" ;
    gmeow:claimedMediaType "application/pdf" ;     # from the ".pdf" extension
    gmeow:detectedMediaType "application/zip" .    # from the magic bytes

A consumer flags the lie by string-comparing the two; the reasoner stays silent. Attach gmeow:confidence / gmeow:wasDerivedFrom to weight the detector over the extension.

Interoperability

Term alignments live in mappings/gmeow-names.sssom.tsv (schema.org, vCard 4, GEDCOM X, FOAF, Wikidata). There are no flat given/family name properties in the canonical model — a name component is always a typed gmeow:NamePart, and a "First Last" rendering for vCard / schema.org / FOAF is produced by downcasting that structured model in the projection layer (gmeow project), never stored.

In the table below, a namePart… token is a gmeow:NamePartType value carried by gmeow:namePartType on a gmeow:NamePart resource — not a predicate:

The only flat name term retained is gmeow:name — the simple rdfs:label tier for entities that don't need the full naming apparatus (it carries no precedence over an entity's other names).

Place naming — hasPlaceName, PlaceNaming, endonym/exonym (place-naming design)

A place's names are not a flat literal. A gmeow:Place bears co-equal gmeow:PlaceName toponyms via gmeow:hasPlaceName (the place-scoped specialization of gmeow:hasAppellation, mirroring gmeow:hasName for persons) — the structured replacement for the retired flat gmeow:alternateName literal (Principle 6, greenfield). Each PlaceName carries its own first-class gmeow:nameLanguage (a gmeow:Language, never a bare tag) and an optional gmeow:namePurpose of namePurposeEndonym (the name a place's own inhabitants use) or namePurposeExonym (the name outsiders use) — co-equal, never a preferred-vs-alternate pair. So München (endonym, German) and Munich (exonym, English) are co-equal names of one place; a superseded historical name sets gmeow:displayable false, never deleted (Principle 10).

The time/audience/authority-scoped use of a toponym reuses the existing gmeow:NameUsage relator: gmeow:PlaceNaming is a DEFINED class, ≡ gmeow:NameUsage ⊓ ∃gmeow:usageNamed.gmeow:Place — the first owl:equivalentClass in GMEOW. A name-usage that names a Place is classified as a PlaceNaming by the reasoner (entailed, authored nowhere — see the place-namings competency query and the entailment test), so no parallel place-naming relator is minted. Such a usage may carry gmeow:usageAuthority (the toponymic / naming authority — a national mapping agency, a standards body, an indigenous community), which is non-functional so joint or competing authorities coexist with no privileged claimant (Principle 9).

Projection (schema.org). fnSelectEndonym emits the displayable endonym as schema:name (a projection frame choice, not a canonical primary), and fnSelectExonym emits exonyms as schema:alternateName; historical/superseded and competing-standpoint names are dropped (documented lossy drops).

Cross-cutting multilingual labels — Organization, CreativeWork, Agreement, Software (multilingual-label design)

The Appellation pattern is not limited to persons and places. Every realm that bears names gets the same multilingual, anti-colonial machinery:

Each bearer property is a subPropertyOf gmeow:hasAppellation, so the full multilingual stack applies: gmeow:nameLanguage → first-class gmeow:Language, gmeow:nameScript, gmeow:romanization + gmeow:transliterationScheme, gmeow:displayable, and gmeow:namePurpose. Co-equal multilingual names are separate Appellation instances — an organization's English legal name and its French exonym are peers, not primary-vs-alternate.

The flat fallbacks (gmeow:name, gmeow:title) remain for the 80 % case where multilingual depth is not needed, following the "flat-first, reify-on-demand" pattern.

Terms

The anchors below index the slice's declared terms; the prose above is the full doctrine.

gmeow:Appellation · gmeow:PersonName · gmeow:PlaceName · gmeow:OrganizationName · gmeow:Filename · gmeow:NamePart · gmeow:PronounSet

gmeow:Appellation is the name as an information object — the bearer of the surface form and the structured parts, with multiple appellations on one entity strictly co-equal (none canonical or primary). gmeow:PersonName, gmeow:PlaceName, gmeow:OrganizationName, and gmeow:Filename are structural subkinds for person, place, organization, and digital-file bearers; gmeow:NamePart is a reified, typed component of an appellation; gmeow:PronounSet is a sex/gender-independent set of third-person pronoun forms.

gmeow:NameUsage · gmeow:usageNamed · gmeow:usageAppellation · gmeow:usageNamer · gmeow:usageAudience · gmeow:usageRelationshipScope · gmeow:usageRegister · gmeow:usageInterval · gmeow:usageAuthority

gmeow:NameUsage is the gufo:Relator situating the use of an appellation in context — who is named (gmeow:usageNamed), by which appellation (gmeow:usageAppellation), by whom (gmeow:usageNamer), toward what audience (gmeow:usageAudience) or within which standing tie (gmeow:usageRelationshipScope), in what register (gmeow:usageRegister), over what period (gmeow:usageInterval), and on whose authority (gmeow:usageAuthority). A usage is always somebody's, never a global fact, so it never derives a preferred or canonical name; the audience (who the name is used toward) is orthogonal to the authority (who asserts the usage).

gmeow:PlaceNaming

A defined specialization of gmeow:NameUsage whose named entity is a gmeow:Place — ≡ gmeow:NameUsage ⊓ ∃gmeow:usageNamed.gmeow:Place, the first owl:equivalentClass in GMEOW. Any name-usage that names a place is inferred to be a gmeow:PlaceNaming, so place naming reuses the relator rather than minting a parallel one; competing and historical toponyms coexist as co-equal place namings with no primary.

gmeow:hasAppellation · gmeow:hasName · gmeow:hasPlaceName · gmeow:hasOrganizationName · gmeow:hasAgreementName · gmeow:hasNamePart

gmeow:hasAppellation is the universal name-bearing property; gmeow:hasName, gmeow:hasPlaceName, gmeow:hasOrganizationName, and gmeow:hasAgreementName are its person-, place-, organization-, and agreement-scoped specializations. All are non-functional — an entity bears many co-equal names, none primary (Principle 9). gmeow:hasNamePart (under the universal gmeow:hasPart spine) attaches the reified, typed components of an appellation.

gmeow:namePartType · gmeow:NamePartType · gmeow:partText · gmeow:partOrder · gmeow:partExpansion

A gmeow:NamePart's kind is the value gmeow:namePartType (a gmeow:NamePartType from the open, multi-cultural vocabulary — given, surname, patronymic, Arabic nisba, filename extension, …), never a subclass. gmeow:partText carries its language-/script-tagged string, gmeow:partOrder records the observed 0-based surface position without implying a given-before-family default, and gmeow:partExpansion carries the full word an abbreviated initial stands for. Parts are for matching and decomposition, not for reassembling display order — gmeow:fullName is authoritative for that.

gmeow:fullName · gmeow:nameLanguage · gmeow:nameScript · gmeow:romanization · gmeow:namePurpose · gmeow:NamePurpose · gmeow:displayable · gmeow:conferredByEvent

gmeow:fullName is the complete surface form in the culture's natural order, authoritative for display. gmeow:nameLanguage is the appellation's single first-class gmeow:Language (functional — co-equal multilingual names are separate appellations, never one multi-tagged name), gmeow:nameScript its ISO 15924 script, and gmeow:romanization a Latin transliteration of this same name that never bridges two co-equal names. gmeow:namePurpose tags the intrinsic kind(s) of a name (a gmeow:NamePurpose value — legal, chosen, deadname, endonym/exonym, …); gmeow:displayable is the only display control — there is deliberately no preferred/primary marker, so a superseded name or deadname sets it false and consumers MUST honour that. gmeow:conferredByEvent is the seam to the events spine, linking an appellation to the gmeow:LifeEvent that conferred or changed it.

gmeow:claimedMediaType · gmeow:detectedMediaType

A filename's extension claims a content type (gmeow:claimedMediaType); the bytes detect one (gmeow:detectedMediaType). Both are non-functional and may disagree — the mismatch is recorded as coexisting confidence-weighted claims, never reasoned into an OWL contradiction.

gmeow:hasPronounSet · gmeow:pronounSubject · gmeow:pronounObject · gmeow:pronounPossessiveDeterminer · gmeow:pronounPossessive · gmeow:pronounReflexive

gmeow:hasPronounSet relates a person to a gmeow:PronounSet they go by — a form of address, non-functional and contextual, that MUST NOT be inferred from (nor imply) gender identity, expression, sex assigned at birth, or orientation. A custom set is defined by filling the five English forms: gmeow:pronounSubject, gmeow:pronounObject, gmeow:pronounPossessiveDeterminer, gmeow:pronounPossessive, and gmeow:pronounReflexive.

gmeow:honorific · gmeow:Honorific · gmeow:honorificPosition · gmeow:HonorificPosition · gmeow:honorificClass · gmeow:HonorificClass

gmeow:honorific records an honorific or title of address (a gmeow:Honorific value) — like pronouns, a sex/gender-independent, non-functional form of address. Each honorific carries gmeow:honorificPosition (a gmeow:HonorificPosition: rendered as prefix Dr Smith or suffix Tanaka-san) and gmeow:honorificClass (a gmeow:HonorificClass: academic, clerical, noble, military, judicial, social).

gmeow:usageRegister · gmeow:NameRegister · gmeow:Register

A name-usage's social register is the value gmeow:usageRegister (a gmeow:NameRegister — formal, intimate, professional, casual — itself a gmeow:Register); register is a fact of the use, not of the name, distinct from the intrinsic gmeow:namePurpose.

What's deliberately non-standard (and why)