I believe it should be A./J./Noel as it is very common here in the US to go buy first name and middle name initials... even your example from Roseanne is wrong... I watch that show ALOT... and know that it was even mentioned in an episode or two that his name D.J. Connor is short for David Jacob Connor.

Without proof that he is a Jr. I would parse it as first and middle.

Not to mention I personally never seen a Jr. handled the way so say in my life.

That could be as simple as messing up the dubbing/subtitles because they didn't know any better... wouldn't be the first time I heard of that type of stuff getting mucked up.

This is another area that is currently wide open for interpretation. Much like the whole debate on suffixes (comma vs. no comma), this is very much a "stylistic choice" on the part of those responsible for making the credits. As I see it, we have two options.

Either we are after an exact copy of the credits, in which case the difference between on-screen credits A.J. Noel and A. J. Noel must also be copied in DVD Profiler. The most-credited form becomes the "common name", and any other variants, no matter how tiny, should be entered in the "credited as" field. This is what we seem to have now, although I'm personally not happy with the the most-credited form becomes the "common name"-bit: I'd rather decide on one standard way of parsing to use in the "name" fields, and then use "credited as" for any variations. Just using the most-credited form will result in one actor being entered as A./B./C. while the next one may have to be entered as D.E.//F. Setting a standard to use in the "name" fields will at least make things consistent.

Or we set a few ground rules, and disregard any variations that are covered by said ground rules. Examples could be: "Always use a comma preceding a Jr./Sr. suffix." Or: "If a name starts with two initials, split them over the 'first name' and 'middle name' fields" (or something to that effect). Note that the same standards could be used in my first option as well, but then they'd only apply to what to enter in the "name" fields. But this second option follows Behemot's assumption that there's no need to differentiate between such variations because they're just based on the style of that particular set of movie credits, so there's not even a need to use "credited as" for these.

well... all we can go by is what we have. and make the best determination as possible. with the set-up we have now... I for one am for word counting as a startup place... and then if can document that isn't right... fix it from there.

If Ken was taken suggestions... I for one would suggest going back to 1 field for the whole name... then any parsing problems go away.

Slightly OT:  An acquaintance of mine from many years back whose given name was J.B.  It wasn't a nickname (like D.J. Connor in Roseanne, or the A.J. Noel of this thread's subject).  It was just plain J.B.  Even on his birth certificate.

I can only imagine what trouble he experienced going through life with people insisting that he give them his "real name" not his initials when J.B. WAS his "real name."  I guess for our purposes, if he were in a movie, J. would be his first name and B. his middle name, though knowing him his argument would be that J.B. is his first name and he didn't have a middle one.