Best Practices for Adding Names

Your Ponga gallery will present you with a quick and easy way to put names to faces. After you upload your pictures, our image analysis functions go to work finding faces and collecting those that it believes (with a high degree of confidence,) are the same person. It takes the best of those images and presents them to you in the gallery so that you can add a name.

All you do is answer the question "Do you know who this is?"

When you name someone in the gallery, the name you use will be associated with that person's face in every picture in which they appear, a "reference portrait" connects the name to the face. We'll pick the best, clearest image to present, but you always have the chance to change the image later.

The name you use will also provide the label for an album collecting every picture in which that person appears. If you change a person's name in the Gallery or on their Details page, the name will be updated everywhere.

Since many pictures include multiple people, the same picture might appear in multiple albums. When a story is added to the picture of grandpa and his three daughters, for example, that story is applied to the picture as it appears in all four albums: that of grandpa, as well as the albums for each of the daughters.

Albums are only created for people you've named in the gallery. If Ponga's collected pictures for individuals in the gallery but you didn't add a name, then Ponga won't create an album for them. Don't worry though.

The idea of the Gallery is to make it quick and easy to put names to the faces of people you recognize. But hey, sometimes you don't. No worries. You can go back into the gallery add names at any time. When faces come up that you aren't sure of, you can add what you do remember, or just set them aside and come back later.

A few best practices

Sometimes it can be a little tricky to give someone the appropriate name. Your best practice is always to consider the context in which other people will see the name. Since the name that you apply will appear in every picture of that person, you want to be thoughtful and choose the name that makes the most sense given how you will use your Ponga pictures.

If you're using your pictures to share with immediate and extended family, then a good approach is to use two or three names, inserting a "nickname" in quotes is a great way to share context without confusing everyone.

• You might jokingly call your brother "Kingslayer" but you have to think that would confuse your grandmother or a distant cousin. Going with Kevin "Kingslayer" Knight is a good compromise.
• Many families use nicknames to help children distinguish grandparents, (pop-pop or gramps, for example). Mary "Tutu" Takuyama works here.
• Some families also have a tradition of sharing the given name of a beloved ancestor so that Jimmie, Jaime, and Jim might all be different people. By inserting the nickname, you can be sure of exactly which James you're talking about. James "Jimbob" Wilson, for example, can be very specific. James Mattis becomes Jim "Maddog" Mattis, for example.

Don't worry: You can change a name at any time.

Changing a name is easy (and global). There are two places where you can change names: First, is in the Gallery where the list of named people appears in a column on the left as you go through the gallery. This is handy when you name someone then realize that you goofed a spelling or something. Just click on the face on the left, the name becomes editable, move your mouse into that field and make the change.

You can also change a name from any picture. Just mouse-over the face in a picture, the preview pops up along with the name in blue type. Tap on that face, and the sidebar opens. Tap on the name or the face, and a page opens where you can edit the name, or even change which person it's associated with.

Names are important: Only picture owners can do it.

Names are very important, so we don't allow just anyone to make these changes. Only the picture owner can change the name. You can always take suggestions in comments, make the change, and delete the comments (or add your own.)

Do you still have questions?

Reach out in the Live Chat and we'll be happy to help you. Your questions, in fact, will help us refine these answers to be more clear for everyone.