--- title: "Can I use a Formal/Legal First Name and a \"Goes By\"/Familiar Name in a Person's Profile?" description: Adding Familiar/ Goes By and Formal /Legal first names in Churchteams so that you don't duplicate people who use two different names --- [Skip to content](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge/how-to-prevent#main-content) English Show submenu for translations [More support](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge/kb-tickets/new?hsLang=en) ![Churchteams Logo](https://help.churchteams.com/hs-fs/hubfs/CT%20Churchteams%20Logo.png?width=320&height=62&name=CT%20Churchteams%20Logo.png) Open main navigation Close main navigation - English Show submenu for translations - [More support](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge/kb-tickets/new) - [Contact us](https://go.churchteams.com/contact/) [Contact us](https://go.churchteams.com/contact/) How can we help you? - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. 1. [Help Center](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge?hsLang=en) 2. [People](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge/people?hsLang=en) 3. [General](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge/people?hsLang=en#general) # Can I use a Formal/Legal First Name and a "Goes By"/Familiar Name in a Person's Profile? ## Adding Familiar/ Goes By and Formal /Legal first names in Churchteams so that you don't duplicate people who use two different names For Churchteams clients who began their subscription before 2019, you can add the Legal First Name field as a custom people attribute by navigating to **People \> Settings \> People Attributes**.   Click Add and create the custom people attribute.  It must be named "Legal First Name." Storing a Legal First Name for people who go by another name, ie. James/Jimmy helps prevent duplicates from occurring when a person fills out a registration form or makes an online contribution using their Legal Name rather than the name they go by, which is commonly in the First Name field on a person's record.  The system will search both the First Name and the Legal First Name peopel attribute fields to prevent a duplicate record being created. (We also added this to the search field in contribution data entry to help avoid duplicates during batch entry.) Often, data from other systems have fields for both *Familiar/* *Goes By* and  *Formal /Legal* first names.  We import  F*amiliar/Goes By* into our *First Name* fixed attribute field.  *Formal/Legal*  is imported as a custom attribute.  From the Advanced Search (located on your Churchteams home page), you can search by the Legal First Name, and the results will show anyone with that name in *either* the First Name or Legal First Name field. ![Screenshot 2024-09-05 at 9.20.31 AM](https://help.churchteams.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202024-09-05%20at%209.20.31%20AM.png?width=606&height=289&name=Screenshot%202024-09-05%20at%209.20.31%20AM.png)   - [Getting Started](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge/getting-started?hsLang=en#main-content) - [Resources](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge/getting-started?hsLang=en#resources) - [People Setup and Data Conversion](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge/getting-started?hsLang=en#people-setup-and-data-conversion) - [Post-Conversion FAQs](https://help.churchteams.com/knowledge/getting-started?hsLang=en#post-conversion-faqs) - 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