Should Іван Петренко д-р read д-р as a credential, the way CLDR's Belarusian and Ukrainian files write it after a name? #1128

The question

д-р (доктор, "doctor") is listed as an academic title in ru.toml, uk.toml and bg.toml (#269). In front of a name, or after a comma, it reads as a title. Ending a name with no comma, it reads as the family name, and the surname moves to the middle:

CLDR 48 states the word in two fields. In front of the name it is part of the title (праф., д-р in Belarusian, проф., д-р in Russian). Ending a name, Belarusian and Ukrainian put it in credentials:

So a doctor's degree written after the name is a post-nominal there, not an address. The parser reads it in no position as CLDR does.

#1104's narrow fix (#1126) left this out on purpose. A first build that read a hyphen-only listed title as the trailing title moved the be and uk renderings' title away from CLDR's: 9 changes against cldr_agreement.json, 3 of them title regressions.

Options

1. Give д-р a credential reading beside its title reading in ru.toml, uk.toml and bg.toml. It would be a deliberate title/suffix dual, as ms, sr and lt are, so position decides: a title in front, a credential at the end and after a comma. Measured below.
2. Read it as the trailing title (rules/H5), extending the chain to a listed title a hyphen joins. It fixes the family field but puts the word in the field CLDR says it isn't in. This is the build Read a listed title with a period inside it at the end of a name without a final period (#1104) #1126 withdrew.
3. Leave it, recording in decisions/H5 that д-р ending a name reads as the family name.

Option 1, measured

Prototyped 2026-11-06 on master 9cdc64bc, by adding credential = { issue = 269 } to д-р in the three files and rebuilding in a scratch copy, and by config_diff.py diff with Lexicon.default().add("д-р", kind="credential"):

• CLDR agreement: 9 field agreements gained and none lost. Title 2,410 → 2,412, suffix 2,380 → 2,385, family_base 396 → 397, surname1_base 186 → 187 of CLDR's renderings. The remaining partial rows:
  • Bulgarian , проф. д-р now reads проф. as a title and д-р as the credential, where CLDR states both as credentials.
  • Under FAMILY_FIRST, фон Бруль Ада … reads family фон, a particle question apart from this one.
• GND, Wikidata and the locale views match their records.
• Committed corpora: 7 names move, all CLDR renderings of д-р.
• Local corpora: one name holds д-р, and it moves badly. доц. д-р Николина Вълканова, д.м. (ORCID) reads family доц. д-р Николина Вълканова, given д.м. on master, since the unlisted д.м. makes the comma a family comma. Under option 1, д-р leaves that family as a suffix while доц. stays in it (family доц. Николина Вълканова, suffix д-р). Both readings are wrong; a dual adds this one. Listing the Bulgarian and Russian degree abbreviations CLDR writes in credentials (д.м., к.м.н., д.м.н.) would be the fix for that name, and may belong in the same change.

Rule shape (option 1)

• When: a title that is also written as a post-nominal degree (д-р) ends a name, or stands after a comma.
• Then: it reads as a credential (suffix). In front of the name it stays the title.
• Because: Belarusian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian write the doctorate after the name as a post-nominal, per CLDR's credentials field. A position read alone can't tell the address from the degree, but the slot can.
• Open:
  • Whether a bare д-р at the end is ever a surname. Nothing suggests so; the hyphen joins the abbreviation's letters.
  • Whether a dual's credential reading should reach into the head before a family comma, as доц. д-р Николина Вълканова, д.м. shows it does.