> Names should be stored as display_name, first_name, and last_name. A display name is not the same as just first plus last. They have different purposes, so don’t shove them together.
It all comes down to the purpose of the database. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. For a hospital which need to register newborns, you can't even count on everyone having a name. For a library database, you need both first name and last name of authors, since books are sorted by authors last name - but having a "display_name" would be redundant and violate normalization.
If you can get away with having a single "name" field, this will say you lots of trouble. Only add additional fields if you need it for some use case.
It all comes down to the purpose of the database. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. For a hospital which need to register newborns, you can't even count on everyone having a name. For a library database, you need both first name and last name of authors, since books are sorted by authors last name - but having a "display_name" would be redundant and violate normalization.
If you can get away with having a single "name" field, this will say you lots of trouble. Only add additional fields if you need it for some use case.