Is normalizing a person's name going too far?

Question

You usually normalize a database to avoid data redundancy. It\'s easy to see in a table full of names that there is plenty of redundancy. If your goal is to create a catalog

Answer 1

In addition to all the points everyone else has made, consider that if you were implementing a data entry operation (for example), and were to insert a new contact, you would have to search your first name and last name tables to locate the correct Id's and then use those values. But then this is further complicated by the occasion when the name is not on the FN and/or LN tables, then you have to insert the new first/last name and use the new id(s).

And if you think that you have a comprehensive list of names, think again. I work with a list of over 200k unique first names and I'd guess it represents 99.9% of the US population. But that .1% = a lot of people. And don't forget the foreign names and misspellings...