“Do not use it for brand name on its own. Use the complete store name.” advise is wrong and misleading.
And in many cases it is brand name, not “complete store name”.
No, they often use some marketing name not actually used by people (sometimes extra words, extra signs, weird styling etc)
“has no bearing on the name” is overstating things as in many cases it is the same, and result of branding.
That does not seem to be the case in France, or in the UK, or the USA, or Italy. You get the gist. I’ve yet to find a store chain that does not distinguish publicly between their store.
The Name Suggestion Index project, which helps ensure consistent brand and operator tagging, generally includes only the brand name in
name=*,
The NSI, while really useful most of the time, degrade OSM regarding the name of chain brands sadly.
“Do not use it for brand name on its own. Use the complete store name.” advise is wrong and misleading.
It’s not. Perhaps you like to display brands and not names of things, but you should not tag for your own preference.
And in many cases it is brand name, not “complete store name”.
You are purposely mistaking the brand and the name. People answer by convenience, and the brand is convenient when you do not need to distinguish between stores. The exact function of a name is there to distinguish between items/persons/etc. That’s why stores, persons, cities etc are given mostly unique names.
“has no bearing on the name” is overstating things as in many cases it is the same, and result of branding.
Nope, as demonstrated in my previous post.
In Poland Lidl, Żabka, IKEA, Awiteks, Good Lood and others do not have unique local names between shops.
I am pretty sure it is true also across Germany, Croatia, Ukraine and several other countries I visited.
In fact I expect it to be true in general.
Note: they may have unique internal names. And chains obviously distinguish by address and location. And likely some chains have shops with unique names per location.
Search results on website may show such location description is view title. Such titles are NOT used by people as common primary name and do not go into name tag.
No, it is about a general consensus. If you try putting ref into name I bet that you will get strong opposition.
You are pushing some pet theory mismatching actual tagging in OSM.
Different supermarkets or convenience shops of the same chain do not have distinct primary names.
name tag is for commonly used primary name. If philosophical “proper name” gets distinct results then it should not be used for describing name tag.
If your intention of pushing “proper name” was to claim that each shop of given brand should have unique name tag set then I think we found critical issue with your proposed terminology change.
Lidl in Poland have names, but they use street names, so that may be considered as not part of the name. I still think that’s a name.
Żabka First time I encounter a store that seem to have no public name, thanks for sharing. That is a good idea to force-set name=brand for this chain in NSI then.
Ikea in Poland have names
Awiteks Does not seem to have unique names, though not sure.
Good Lood Have unique names
Thanks for sharing those examples, indeed in middle/eastern Europe it seems a bit more common. I agree with you that those who don’t have unique names should have the brand in the name. They are not names, but they are the next best thing. But even with the examples you picked, the majority have unique names.
And they should have never been pushed to remove the real name in favour of brands, but only limited on brand chains which do not have names.
Such titles are NOT used by people as common primary name
Again, you know that’s not true when people need to distinguish between stores. That’s why names exist. Try meeting people in “'McDonalds’s in Paris”, see how you fare.
If you try putting
refinto name I bet that you will get strong opposition.
Nice whataboutism ! Nobody is asking that.
No, it is about a general consensus
There is no general consensus, just a habit that was pushed by some contributors, and forced with NSI, reinforcing the habit. Even when it’s mostly incorrect as demonstrated above.
You are pushing some pet theory mismatching actual tagging in OSM.
“Some pet theory” ? That the names the store themselves display everywhere, and every employee, delivery people, anyone who knows more than 1 of the store will use should be in OSM ?
If your intention of pushing “proper name” was to claim that each shop of given brand should have unique
nametag set then I think we found critical issue with your proposed terminology change.
Do not use “we”, when you mean you. You do not represent anyone here except you.
I simply push for using the names used by the people on the ground, and the owners/workers of the stores want to use, and the consumers need. And I tag brand=* each time to let consumers use brands in lieu of names if they want.
If you prefer using brands, that’s a display need. Please do not degrade the names in OSM to accomodate your preference.
Wow, that’s so useful ! I know that listing restaurants is a niche usecase, so no need to accomodate pesky users wanting to find the restaurant of their choice.
I can at least speak to the situation in the U.S. Walmart does indeed say things like “North Bergen Supercenter” on its website, but this is not the store’s name, it’s just a description. The official store name is “Walmart Supercenter #3795”. That could be tagged as an official_name, but in general the number only appears in a ref:walmart=* tag. It’s been a while since I shopped at a Walmart, so I don’t have a receipt handy, but I don’t think they even print the store number on receipts anymore. Meanwhile, everyone just calls it “Walmart” or maybe “Walmart Supercenter”.
The one American supermarket chain that routinely signposts store names is IGA, which is more of a collective than a chain. IGA store naming is all over the place. Most stores couple “IGA” with some local name, but some go by only the brand name, while others omit the brand name.
Yes and no. Convenience is certainly a part of the story, but I’m not suggesting that we abridge some POI names just because they’re long and unwieldy. It all depends on how the store markets themselves and how people interact with it. “Hampton Inn San Jose Cherry Avenue” is OK as that hotel’s name, even though it duplicates addr:street=* and addr:city=*. This Safeway store is fine as just “Safeway”. Target San Jose College Park is a name used by micromappers like myself but not even by the employees who work at that store. (I’ve asked.)
An object’s name, or the lack thereof, can differ depending on context. Let’s suppose you stand outside this supermarket, notepad in hand, and ask shoppers to identify the store as they leave it. Here are some possible scenarios:
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Names of some other kinds of POIs, like gas stations, can be far more obscure. The receipt below is the only way a customer would ever know the legal business name of this Shell station, which has nothing to do with its marketing name:
This is the way things are in some places. If it legitimately differs in other places, NSI can accommodate those needs.
Regardless, I think this discussion suggests that the proposed revision of the “Key:name” article may be too simplistic or even misleading. It should mention a possible relationship between brand=* and name=*, but an umbrella statement about preferring one over the other doesn’t seem like an improvement.
I am not denying it.
But this names are not commonly used primary name and they do not go into name tag.
If you think so, feel free to discuss it with wider Polish community. I assure you that noone uses them as primary common name in actual use and tagging them as name tag would be clearly wrong.
The same goes for Good Lood.
They can be in OSM but unless they are in common use as primary name they must not be put into name tag.
feel free to ask wider community specifically about this
You just claimed that ul. Mogilska 116, 31-445 Kraków is name of one of Lidl stores. I assure you that it is 100% wrong and noone is using this as a shop name.
If you believe that it is name that should be put into name tag then you should not edit Key:name documentation page.
This is an address, not name - and they use it on their website as repeating name for each store is pointless. As all have the same name. So they used title space to share store address.
Brand listing internal name or descriptions of locations does not mean we are obligated to put it into name tag. Notably Good Lood and other do not display this names in actual shops.
This is utterly irrelevant for name tagging. If they also want to use ™ this is also irrelevant.
Names alone often are insufficient to identify meeting location. Try meeting people by specifying “on Wielicka street in Kraków” and you will have miserable time to find each other. It is still its name.
Did you search for “McDonald’s”, or are you currently located in a food desert where the only results for “restauration rapide” would be McDonald’s restaurants? I agree that an application could attempt to disambiguate the results for a better user experience, especially if you specifically searched for McDonald’s. However, I’m not sure if qualifying the locations by their official names would really help a user decide which restaurant to eat at. I think they would prefer to see each result annotated with the address or neighborhood, calculated from OSM’s extensive road, place, and boundary coverage. Perhaps you could suggest that to the application’s developer?
I am not denying it.
I wasn’t sure you were trolling, but that confirms it.
feel free to discuss it with wider Polish community
feel free to ask wider community specifically about this
No need to discuss it further. Your (and some others) whole argument is based on the fact that’s because it’s often not needed to name the store, people just use the brand to refer to a restaurant, because it’s shorter. We both know that’s not the name.
Or perhaps you’re right, you should suggest that every McDonald’s should be named “McDo” in France as that’s what people use. Feel free to make a PR into NSI.
You just claimed that
ul. Mogilska 116, 31-445 Krakówis name of one of Lidl stores. I assure you that it is 100% wrong and noone is using this as a shop name.
I addressed this point, it’s not readable so I’m not sure. But that seem to be what Lidl uses, and the only thing that could allow the public to distinguish between stores. You can assume that I’m wrong on this count, it doesn’t matter as there is so many more examples of unique names, across multiple countries.
You however, did not address the numerous other examples.
This is utterly irrelevant for
nametagging. If they also want to use ™ this is also irrelevant.
Again, you remove half of the argument, and whatabout something else altogether. That is exhausting and not useful debate.
Names alone often are insufficient to identify meeting location.
They are sufficient, that’s why takeout apps have no problem using that to display the restaurant in a list. But not OSM sadly.
name values are NOT unique. No idea why you think so.
name is not for the unique identifiers. name is likely not for “proper name”. name is for common primary name.
Some description, address or code shown only in app and website, not used by people to refer to given shop, not appearing on any signage is unlikely to be a valid name value.
To repeat: names alone often are insufficient to identify location. That is why addresses were invented as road name is not sufficient to identify location.
Try meeting people by specifying “on Wielicka street in Kraków” and you will have miserable time to find each other. It is still its name.
If you think so, then I will put this thread on ignore.
Though no idea why you think so based on that. Yes, such internal/official name can be put into (maybe_ official_name or other tag but not into name tag.
Did you search for “McDonald’s”
Yes.
you currently located in a food desert where the only results for “restauration rapide” would be McDonald’s restaurants
There would be the same problem in any dense area with multiple restaurants of a chain.
However, I’m not sure if qualifying the locations by their official names would really help a user decide which restaurant to eat at
The names chosen by the chains are to be easily recognizable by users, so it would help a lot.
I think they would prefer to see each result annotated with the address or neighborhood, calculated from OSM’s extensive road, place, and boundary coverage.
That’s a bit costly, but would be feasible I believe. But why not tag the name used by everyone ? That would penalize absolutely nobody, while solving this issue across the OSM ecosystem.
Compare with the McD application for example (yes, this thread made me install this app…) . The name allows any city dweller to understand which shop it is, and it has the address as you suggested.
Perhaps you could suggest that to the application’s developer?
I’m not the one advodcating for removing names in favour of brands here 
Moving to name=brand+branch will just break any real chance of OSM becoming truly multilingual.
I’m no fan of the extreme “name is what’s on the door”, but this is the extreme in the opposite direction.
I think that is what we are all aiming for. But you seem to be saying that “the name used by everyone” is never the same as the brand. That seems too dogmatic: in practice, sometimes the only suitable name is the brand.
For example, what would you say is the name of the individual supermarkets operated by Día in Spain, as shown here in their own app?
I would say that the supermarkets are distinguished here by their street addresses, which should not be used as the name tag. So the name tag would be Día, same as the brand.
If you take the purpose of the wiki to be to document common practice, the proscription against using brands in names is prescriptive, not descriptive, and not good documentation.
I would also very lightly suggest that ~10 opinions represents a small discussion and should not be treated as a wider agreement than that.
I think most OSM data consumers already qualify search results with addresses or place names. Every application is built differently, so I don’t think we can necessarily say that disambiguating results would be too costly to implement.
I think your screenshot is from OsmAnd, which includes a subtitle on the right side of each result that disambiguates it from other results. However, the subtitle for POIs is the POI type. This results in the curious situation that mistagged McDonald’s Drive-Throughs are qualified by city even though McDonald’s restaurants themselves are not. Arguably this is a bug in a particular data consumer, which isn’t a great argument in favor of changing how one of OSM’s most common keys is defined.
Luckily, other users have already reported this issue:
Moving to
name=brand+branchwill just break any real chance of OSM becoming truly multilingual.
I don’t see why, care to explain why removing names in favour of brands in name=* would break multilinguism ?
I’m no fan of the extreme “name is what’s on the door”, but this is the extreme in the opposite direction.
No extremes here, just respecting core OSM values shared by most, including those who disagree with me : do not map for the renderer, map what’s “on the ground”/“verifiable” etc.
But you seem to be saying that “the name used by everyone” is never the same as the brand.
The initial way I worded it was not good. But that’s not what it conveyed : use the full name [if available], not just the brand.
For example, what would you say is the name of the individual supermarkets operated by Día in Spain, as shown here in their own app?
Once again, if my previous messages were not clear enough, I never said absolutely absolutely all chains in all countries have unique public names for stores. That would be presumptuous. There is a lot that have unique public names, and at least a few without were shared.
the proscription against using brands in names is prescriptive, not descriptive, and not good documentation.
I agree. That’s not what was intended, see above.
I would also very lightly suggest that ~10 opinions represents a small discussion and should not be treated as a wider agreement than that.
Agreed. Just like what NSI decided, and what original authors of Name pages decided too.
I don’t think we can necessarily say that disambiguating results [by address] would be too costly to implement
Nobody said that.
which includes a subtitle on the right side of each result that disambiguates it from other results
Yes it’s OSMAnd, and no it doesn’t disambiguate. It indicates the city, which may or may not suffice. In city centers, it wouldn’t. But the name would, as it’s its function, when available.
Arguably this is a bug in a particular data consumer, which isn’t a great argument in favor of changing how one of OSM’s most common keys is defined
I agree that CjMalone, Mateusz and Minh_Nguyen should not change the meaning of names to brands.
I however did not advocate for any change on the definition, just explained what a name is, and while people often use brands in lieu of names by convenience, when asked for the name of a place in particular they will answer with the name and not just the brand.
Do you consider this to be true globally and for all kinds of POIs? How do you know?
Looks like name=McDonald's to me. As you say, anything else would be mapping for the renderer. Use branch.
Completely agree with this. If there’s signage showing that the name of something includes a branch or location then yeah, it makes sense to include it in name, but if it’s just signed with a brand, then branch is more suitable. Data consumers are responsible for using the data in the right ways, adding the branch to the name just for it to show up in certain places is tagging for the [insert consumer here].
Avoiding brands as names is something that would be better in a separate discussion specifically about it and not dropped into page tidying.
