NAPWR Portal Name Standard

Why we use one consistent name structure for women religious — and how partners should format names for the portal and ArchivesSpace.

Search-friendly De-duplicates people Respects religious naming Works across congregations

What the portal needs (in plain terms)

Our portal isn’t just “displaying a name.” It must help users:

  • Identify the right person (not a look-alike with the same religious name).
  • Search and filter effectively across multiple congregations.
  • See context immediately (who she was, where she belongs, and her life dates).
  • Avoid duplicates when different sources use different versions of the same name.
 

The standard name format we use

Portal display label

Title Religious Name, Congregation (Birth Name), DOB–DOD

Example

Sister Ellen, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Agatha Hurley), 1826-1902
Why this works: It shows identity + context in one line, and it stays consistent even when sources vary.
🚩 The ArchivesSpace 'Agent' record will provide additional key information for identifying specific individuals. 🚩
 

Why this structure is best for a portal

1) Title signals “type of person” immediately

“Sister / Mother / Sr.” tells users they’re looking at a woman religious record (not a lay person, priest, or organization). It also helps pattern-matching in extraction workflows.

2) Religious name is how records reference the individual

Finding aids, necrologies, annals, and community histories refer to women religious by the religious name. Putting it first matches how researchers browse and how most sources are written.

3) Adding the congregation improves filtering

Across the U.S. and globally, there are many “Sister Mary Joseph” / “Sister Catherine” / “Sister Mary Ann.” Congregation is the fastest, clearest way to distinguish records.

4) Birth name anchors identity across sources

Many sources list birth names (baptismal names) and some list only religious names. Including birth name in parentheses connects those worlds and reduces duplicate agents.

5) DOB–DOD makes people uniquely identifiable

Life dates disambiguate similar names, help users confirm they found the right person, and improve chronological browsing. Even partial dates improve accuracy.

6) It scales across congregations (the real requirement)

A portal must normalize differences in local practice. This format works whether a partner records: short bios, long bios, necrology style entries, mission lists, or directory-style profiles.

 

Rules for building the standard label

Use these rules every time

  1. Title: use Sister unless a more specific title is known (e.g., Mother).
  2. Religious name: use the preferred form from the partner authority sheet.
  3. Congregation: use the standard congregation string for your partner (consistent spelling).
  4. Birth name: put in parentheses if known.
  5. Dates: use YYYY-YYYY when possible (or full dates if your system supports them).

Omit safely when unknown

  • If birth name is unknown: omit parentheses entirely.
  • If dates are unknown: omit the date portion.
  • If only one date is known: use what you have (e.g., 1902- or -1981) if your local policy allows.
 

Examples partners can copy

Situation Label example
Full data available Sister Ellen, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Agatha Hurley), 1826-1902
Birth name unknown Sister Ellen, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1826-1902
Dates unknown Sister Ellen, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Agatha Hurley)
Congregation string required for disambiguation Sister Mary Joseph, Congregation Name (Birth Name), 1890-1971
 

Clear instructions for partners

1Keep an authority worksheet for your congregation

Your authority worksheet is the “source of truth” for preferred names and variants. It allows us to standardize different spellings, abbreviations, and nicknames into one consistent portal label.

  • Add variants separated by semicolons (e.g., Sr. Mary A.; Sister Mary Angela; S. Angela).
  • Use one preferred record per person.

2Run extraction to collect names, titles/roles, and places from rows

The extraction step finds candidate names and controlled roles from narrative text fields. This helps capture people and roles even when worksheets are messy or inconsistent.

3Standardize names using your authority worksheet

This produces the consistent religious-name display that becomes the portal’s primary name and feeds the ArchivesSpace Agent creation step.

4Populate the All_Names_fields sheet (one person per row)

This is the staging format for the bulk upload pipeline. It lets us generate ArchivesSpace Agent records consistently, even when partner data structures differ.

🚩 Reminder: In ArchivesSpace bulk upload, one row = one person. If a single biography mentions multiple sisters, split them into separate rows in All_Names_fields. 🚩
 

Bottom line

The format Title Religious Name, Congregation (Birth Name), DOB–DOD is the best label because it is:

  • Human-readable (a researcher can confirm identity in seconds)
  • Machine-stable (consistent for matching, deduping, and export)
  • Cross-congregation ready (solves duplicate-name collisions)
  • Aligned to archival reality (religious names + birth names appear across record types)

✅  Output Record:  Sister Ellen, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Agatha Hurley), 1826-1902  ✅