#3964: Haitian names (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Janet Higbie <higbiej@nytimes.com>

The communications outlet for which I toil has a policy of using
"official'' names for people quoted in most news stories.   This means
full, given names rather than nicknames (with a few exceptions, such as
Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter) and accents for names of people living in
countries where French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or German is the major
language. 

This presents a bit of a challenge for stories from Haiti.  No problem for
middle-class politicians, officials and business people, because they have
a French-language official identity -- we use the French spelling and
accents.  But what about Haitians who speak only Creole?   I'm think of
those names that could be spelled either in French or Creole -- to pick a
completely random example, Régine or Rejin.  Would the official name, the
one that might be recorded on a birth certificate, parish record or
election register, be spelled in French or Creole?  

My apologies if this sounds a bit pedantic, but the goal is consistency and
respect.

La Higbie