Thread:Inept Wiki User/@comment-34962159-20180830014025/@comment-5275759-20180901153515

This is an area which is a bit murky and not as clear as some might think. There aren't actually proper, written precepts for it and in the past, writers have followed their own inclinations in this field. Others have observed their tendencies, made assumptions and subsequently carried them forward with their own edits, often proliferating misconceptions (as well as similar ones in other fields, which has all created a fair bit of encroaching mess which has still to be cleaned up). I've seen a few people say otherwise at a number of points, but I've done a thorough and extensive investigation of the history and activity logs, and ascertained that those claims are inaccurate. I've been a little hesitant and have been treating this subject carefully, due to a combination of caution, awareness, workload, communication difficulties, real-life events and past (for want of a better word) trauma elsewhere, though I have intended to deal with the matter at some point and try to clean things up.

This is not an area in which a simple uniform approach is appropriate. Rather than using solely one name or the other for every single example, the circumstances surrounding the characters need to be taken into account. Not doing so is folly.

What I personally would do in most cases is to use the singular name which is most often used in the narrative to refer to the individual (what I sometimes refer to as the Primary Singular Narrative Reference or PSNR)(e.g. Orsola for Orsola Aquinas, Westcott for Willian Wynn Westcott, Fran for Karasuma Fran, Uiharu for Uiharu Kazari etc). However if the individuals are frequently referred to by their other singular name within the story (e.g. Kuroko for Shirai Kuroko), share their name with many other characters (e.g. if they're part of a family such as the Kiharas for instance), or both (e.g. Touma for Kamijou Touma), the other name may be used instead, though not in every case (e.g. Mathers for Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, even though he also has a wife). In cases where things aren't clear, one should take all of the circumstances into account and apply their own judgement to reach an appropriate decision.