Does it make sense choose any surname type?

Help
1

When I add name or alternate name, there I can add a surname with any type.
Is it required to add any types near surnames? I added them earlier. But now I’ve got a gedcom export from another tool and I see there that Birth and Married surnames dont have any types. So, I think, maybe I did an extra job when added types? Where these types are used in Gramps? maybe they have any affect to exports?

I will explain a bit more:
I always have only one surname inside Birth name
I always have only one surname inside Married name
I always have only one surname inside AKA name
At the same time I can have multiple Married names or multiple AKA names (but always with one surname inside)

2

I do not use the Origin setting. But then again, my work is mostly Patrilineal with a few Matrilineal names from unwed mothers.

Experience here in the forum indicates for others this is an important feature. As with everything, we each utilize the tools Gramps provides in our own way.

3

And now that I have read your post with greater understanding, the Types of names I do use to help identify the additional name records.

I never add Married Name records unless the known married name is outside the cultural norm. For my database that would be the woman taking the husband’s surname. But that may be laziness on my part. When I create a Narrative Web for a cousin, I make note of this as part of the home screen.

Males in my database will tend to receive more alternative names. Birth names are just that. George Washington was not born “General Washington” or “President Washington”. Likewise, they were not born “John Smith, Sr”. These get the Types “Rank”, “Title” and “Also Known As”.

I do add commonly used Nicknames or Call names to a Birth Name record. When a nickname is only used within the family, that gets added to its own name record.

Name changes because of adoption or other legal reasons get their own name record. These will be set in the person’s Preferred Name slot.

I started my family’s genealogy using PAF (Personal Ancestral File). It had only one name record so every title, rank, suffix, nickname and AKA were all piled on together. Took a long while to break that all apart.

Any alternative names do get added to the Narrative Web and the Complete Individual reports which are my report options.

4

There’s a couple examples of name origin updater scripts for the SuperTool addon in the “Tree vivisection experiments with the Isotammi SuperTool” topic.

One looks though a selection of Families and checks the children’s Surname against the Father’s. If they match and there isn’t an origin yet, it sets the Origin to Patrilineal.

The other checks against the Spouse and set the Origin to Taken when there is a match. All these surnames of Taken origin should be of Married type.