I know there are some examples of characters with two different names, like "Natasha Romanoff / Natalia Romanova" and "Erik Magnus Lehnsherr / Max Eisenhardt" because the writers bounced back and forth, but what about the same for code names?

My example would be "Ariel / Sprite / Shadowcat". Telling when the right name is right is even harder with "Boom-Boom / Boomer / Meltdown".

Should these be combined? I think data wise, combination would be a good thing, since they all refer to the same character.

And doing "Spider-Man / Peter Benjamin Parker" doesn't work because you would have "Thor / Dr. Donald Blake" and "Thor / Eric Masterson", so code names and real names should never cross. I'm only talking about those with a changing codename, and mostly only referring to those with confusing codename divisions, say like "Angel / Archangel" now that they are changing that character.

I dunno - it's one thing when we're talking alter egos, 'cause it's not likely there's gonna be any confusion about who Natasha Romanoff is. But with costumed names, you see it all the time. For the examples you gave, Ariel is also a Disney character, Sprite is an Eternal, Boomer shows up in Battlestar Galactica, and Meltdown is a Transformer.

And it gets worse when we look at examples such as Captain America/U.S.Agent/The Captain/Nomad - every code name worn by Rogers, and every one worn by others. Better just to use the names they had in the books, which usually isn't that hard to pin down.

I think that proper names can be combined (like James "Logan" Howlett), but when it comes to a super hero codename, I think these should be left seperate.

If I'm searching for Speedball appearances, I don't wanna have Penance appearances pop up.

If I wanted to see both I'd search for Robby Baldwin.

The Proper name should be the character denominator and Superhero code names should be variable.

Agreed?

And let's not even get started on the Batman Family.

Or Clint Barton - or Hank Pym. Ugh - can you imagine what the character lists would look like? We could end up with an issue of Avengers with only one character in it:
Hawkeye/Ronin/Goliath/Black Goliath/Giant Man/Ant Man/Yellow Jacket/Captain America/Captain/U.S.Agent/Nomad/Jack Daniels/Super-Patriot/Bucky/Scourge

Ok - that wasn't really called for, but it was fun to put together. This could be the basis for a six-degrees type game - can anyone get from Spider-Man to the Hulk by jumping back and forth between real names and code names?

Sorry Keith - I don't think this is gonna fly. There might be room for a few special cases, like if the code name has two commonly used, but not normally differentiated, spellings, but in general I think it would cause more problems than it would solve.

See, but part of the problems raised here would be fixed by combining. We would have an entry for "Penance / Hollow" and another entry for "Penance". Sure, sometimes the wrong one would slip, but right now we have them mixed together anyway.

I just hate the Boom Boom / Boomer / Meltdown thing. When did she start going by each? I can't keep track. So really, today, we probably have a lot wrong.

I know there was a conversation a while back about doing suffixes after then name, like which Earth or time line kinda thing. I like that idea, and I know it would be a pain to sort out, but it could just happen as best we could, and try to get it as accurate as possible so when you click on "Penance", you never see an issue of Generation X.

I would think combining the names would eliminate accuracy, since you wouldn't be able to look up when someone has a particular codename. If you want to see all appearances of Tabitha Smith, that's the name you should look up. As for when she was what, here's a rough timeline:
Just Tabitha Smith - Secret Wars II
Boom Boom - Fallen Angels/X-Terminators/X-Factor/New Mutants
Boomer - X-Force
Meltdown - X-Force 51

Yeah. I'm generally against combining codenames since so many cross over various characters and companies.

Your statement is very confusing. Today we have a listing for "Angel". You look it up, you get both the X-Man and the Buffy character. If you did this combining, you would rename "Archangel" to "Angel / Archangel", move the X-Man listings out of the "Angel" listing, and you would have better accuracy in the DB.

That was the point I was trying to make. And you would get the side benefit of not having to worry about which codename of the week/writer it was, it was all the same character. I hate to think of all the complications of this new story line part in X-Force. Are we going to put in Angel anytime you see white wings, Archangel when they go technorganic, and then see a spotty listing if you clicked on either one of their codenames and one issue had one, the other had the other?

I restated this one more time just to make sure it was understood, since some of the comments made it hazy. But if there is no support for it, then it can die off.

I agree that alter egos hsould be kept seperate.

Going with your example, what's the problem with having one name cover two characters from two different books if they're exactly the same?

Combinign code names would get very messy and Angel is not the same as Archangel. Buffy's angel is not the same as Liam or Angelus. Wolverine should not be combined with Weapon X, ect.

Everybody sees that right now, according the the DB, X-Men Angel is the same as Buffy Angel (and probably others). If this is the best it can be, OK, but what I thought is that there should be a separate character for each of these. And you can't just make 2 "Angel" listings, because no one could tell which is which. Bu if you had "Angel" and "Angel / Archangel", you could at least tell those two apart.

Sometimes the line is easy to see. The Boomer example was a pain, as ever writers use the wrong codename here and there. But since we have "Erik Magnus Lehnsherr / Max Eisenhardt", why wouldn't we have "Boomer / Boom-Boom / Meltdown"? That is the best example to this question I can give. We combine names like that or "Natasha Romanoff / Natalia Romanova", but not the code name variations? I thought if we expanded it, it would be better.

And if the one "Angel" listing has all the Angels of the world, OK, but what if it could be more precise?

See but if done properly, anywhere you see Angel and Warren Kenneth Worthington III will tell you that it's the Marvel Comics X-Men character.

Now the reason there's "Erik Magnus Lehnsherr / Max Eisenhardt" is relatively new because, for some reason, Greg Pak decided to abandon Marvel's history with regards to Magneto's name and give him a new one but it's still the same character in the same continuity. Other times, as is the case with "Dr. Emil Erskine / Abraham Erskine / Josef Reinstein", over the years Marvel didn't really keep records or archives as to what the scientist who created the Super Soldier serum was named and so a new writer just made one up. Now that we have Databases and Marvel has an archivist (and us fans), we can combine all the names because the all involve the same person who was just mistakenly misnamed at one point. As for "Natasha Romanoff / Natalia Romanova" she goes by both names even today but her Alter Ego is still Black Widow. CCL wants to keep hero names and Alter Egos separate so they don't want "Natasha Romanoff / Natalia Romanova / Black Widow". And even if she changed her hero name to something else, it would have to be entered as a new entry but you'd still include "Natasha Romanoff / Natalia Romanova" wherever her new costumed identity appeared.

Yes, separate entries for code names and real names makes tons of sense. There are a few weird ones that this would have addressed, but I can see that the community has considered this, and does not see it the same way I do. No biggie, I don't have to be right, I just thought of this and thought it was a good thing.

I saw an old conversation about adding universe/time lines and such, and if that ever gets brought up again, we an pick this up then. I'd still like to see one day where I can click on a name, and only get the character I'm looking for, not a "maybe" list.

Well the search function isn't in place yet. I think once CCL fully integrates it's search function so you can cross-reference things and do multiple field searches (I guess an Advanced Search) feature, it'll be easier to link certain things like Marvel Angel vs Dark Horse (Buffy) Angel. And I'm sure there's some other Angels as well. That's why having complete information is really helpful, especially in the Character field.

I called for an Index in THIS THREAD over a year ago culminated from the Database but nothing yet. We'll see.