Terms for name prefixes "Ms., Mr." vs "Prof., Dr."
I'm searching for two words that adequately describe and differentiate between the following two categories/groups of words, given they exist in english:
- Ms, Mr, Mrs, Miss etc.
- Dr, Prof, Revd etc.
Background is that I have to store this data in a database for both english and non-english persons, with some non-english languages requiring words from both groups to be present at the same time (as opposed to english where i.e. you would use either Dr. or Mr., but not both of them together).
Solution 1:
The relevant Wikipedia article about English honorifics calls the former group "common titles" and the latter "academic and professional titles".
Solution 2:
I'm not sure how well this will generalize to all the titles in your lists, but for the ones you listed you could call them "social titles" (or "courtesy titles") and "professional titles".
What’s a Social Title?
Social titles are the prefixes that go before people’s names (i.e. Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss).
[...]
Professional Titles
When it comes to social titles, rank matters. The professional title always trumps the social one, regardless of gender.
Invitations: Addressing Social Titles
Social titles are also called "courtesy titles", for example:
Courtesy Titles: Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms.
AP Style: Courtesy and Professional titles