[petalmind]

> For example not everyone has a middle name, but you don't want to go all 5th Normal Form on it.

(actual question) how does 5NF apply here?

I thought that this case could be handled null-free by introducing a separate table

people_middlenames (human_id PK, middlename NOT NULL);

Is it already 5NF? I thought 5NF requires more complex structure of data, like explained in Wikipedia, for example.

Thanks,

[ElectricalUnion]

Looks 5NF enough to me.

That being said, names is an awful example; if you have to assume a specific structure from someone's name you kinda already lost [1][2].

Better to just assume it's a opaque mutable unicode string and hope for the best.

[1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

[2] https://shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/falsehoods-programmers...