Mount & Mt - Saint & St (1-17, 1-22)

These two standards handle last names that include the words (or abbreviations for) Mount or Saint the same way. The standards say that regardless of how the word is handled on the document being recorded (it’s either spelled out or abbreviated), when the registry enters the name in the index, it should be done both ways. For example, if the document contains the name John St. Claire, there would be two index entries made. One would be ST CLAIRE, JOHN and the other would be SAINT CLAIRE, JOHN (even though SAINT was not spelled out on the document.

Thus far, two registries have made known their opposition to this rule:

1-17 and 1-22 Same rule for St. and Mt.- just for the record, I do not agree with these items being a part of the Standards. Who are we to determine how a person spells their name? I believe that the name should be indexed as it appears on the instrument. Does anyone else agree with this?

And this

I must agree with [the previous comment] regarding the Mount, Mt and St, Saint issue. We never addressed the already accepted standards, yet they were changed. I don’t think we should change anyone’s legal name. We had a situation here with spelling out Saint when his name was St Germaine and we had problems.

My view: I don’t see how this could be considered “changing someone’s name” when the rule requires the registry to index it both ways – exactly as it appears on the document (whether that’s abbreviated or spelled out) and then a second time using the other option even though that’s not how it appears on the document. Doing it this way increases the amount of work the registry must perform but there is a benefit for people using the index. They would not necessarily have to do two different searches when confronted with such names (once spelled out, again abbreviated). I suppose good title examiners would check it both ways regardless of how we say we’ll do it. Anyway, my personal opinion was that we should just enter such names as they appear on the document, but I’m quite sure that at the June registers conference, the association voted to handle it the way the standards are now written. I would urge anyone who has an opinion on this to comment since these proposed standards can still be modified for a compelling reason.