Danbooru

What's the deal with no periods after initials?

Posted under General

I've noticed that a lot of character tags that include an initial don't have a period after it. For example: kaburagi_t_kotetsu, solf_j_kimblee, sanya_v_litvyak, charlotte_e_yeager, monkey_d_luffy, portgas_d_ace, dlanor_a_knox, millhiore_f_biscotti, willard_h_wright, heidimarie_w_schnaufer, alice_l_malvin, etc.

Shouldn't these get aliased to a form with a period after the initial?

edit: Also, some characters with "Jr." or "Sr." suffixes are also sans periods, e.g. barnaby_brooks_jr, barnaby_brooks_sr.

Updated by jxh2154

jjj14 said:
I've noticed that a lot of character tags that include an initial don't have a period after it. For example: kaburagi_t_kotetsu, solf_j_kimblee, sanya_v_litvyak, charlotte_e_yeager, monkey_d_luffy, portgas_d_ace, dlanor_a_knox, millhiore_f_biscotti, willard_h_wright, heidimarie_w_schnaufer, alice_l_malvin, etc.

Shouldn't these get aliased to a form with a period after the initial?

Only if there's a tag with a period after the initial, in which case there aren't. Since you're looking at the proper tags themselves.

Alice L Malvin might be a bad example. If I remember correctly "L" is the title that has been bestowed upon her family for service to the empire by the emperor, so I do not think the L is short for anything and the usage of the period in her name in translations is more likely an error.

Updated

I think on the whole there isn't any problem with making aliases for this. The alias ensures that people will be able to use both, and the displayed result will be correct. Unless there is some reason I didn't think of, I say we should do this. I don't think the "non-alphanumeric" argument goes for this, it may not be alphanumeric, but it's not exactly an obscure symbol-it's on every keyboard.

Anyway, that's my thought on the subject. If we were to do this, someone would probably have to compile a list... (the ones in OP are a good start, taking note of NWF's objection.)

On further looking, the L in Alice L Malvin's name may be short for Lei, but unfortunately only two sites were pulled up on google and neither had a source. What is available in English I do not think mentions what the L in her name is, though it does reach a point where she does state that her family was given the title "L" (volume 3 of the manga and somewhere in the middle of the anime). The English translation by Del Rey does consistently use Alice L. Melvin, though I've always had some issues with their choices of awkward wordings sometimes, so I wouldn't exactly say their translations seemed the best in my mind.

Edit: Looking again at this, the L in her name is likely the title, but it being L or Lei is due to translation. Del Rey translated the title as "L". Eclipse's fansub of the anime also translated it as "L". Funimation's translation of the title has it as "Lei".

Updated

Execute one as an example to the rest.

I prefer without the periods. It somehow looks better and dodges the question of whether or not a particular name is actually an abbreviation or not.

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RaisingK said: I prefer without the periods. It somehow looks better and dodges the question of whether or not a particular name is actually an abbreviation or not.

Yeah, makes sense. Did all the ones mentioned in this thread.

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