Understand how to handle name variations across contracts, family documents, and corporate records to avoid duplicate entities.
When to Use an Alias vs. a Historical Name Change
Legal documents frequently refer to entities and individuals by different names. ORCA provides two mechanisms to handle name variations cleanly:
1. Historical Name Change (Legal Amendments)
Use an official Name Change event when an entity or individual legally changes their name (e.g., corporate re-branding, formal statutory amendment, marriage):
- Recorded with an effective date.
- Maintains complete legal history in the entity's Details View under "View name changes".
- Older transactions remain attached to the name in effect at that time.
2. Aliases (Informal Names, DBAs, and Acronyms)
Use Aliases when an entity or individual operates under multiple names simultaneously, or when informal shorthand appears in contracts:
- Trade names and "Doing Business As" (d/b/a).
- Initialisms or shorthand used in closing memos (e.g., "RMM" for "Richard M. Miller").
- Maiden names or family nicknames on informal documents.
Automatic Alias Matching in Sonar
When Sonar scans legal documents, it actively searches for declared aliases:
- Sonar detects phrases such as "hereinafter referred to as", "d/b/a", "a/k/a", and defined terms in quotation marks or brackets.
- During review, Sonar attaches the discovered alias to the entity profile.
- Future document uploads matching any known alias are automatically routed to the existing entity rather than generating a new, duplicate profile.
Setting a Primary Alias
An entity can hold multiple aliases simultaneously. You can designate one alias as the Primary Alias:
- The Primary Alias determines what displays on the Structure Chart when using Alias Mode or Incognito Mode.
- To set or adjust an alias, open the entity's Details View, select the name section, and choose which alias serves as primary.
Merging Duplicate Entities Created by Name Differences
If an alternate name was mistakenly added as a separate entity:
- Review both entity records to identify the master entity holding the primary documents and events.
- Re-assign any misattributed events (such as ownership stakes or mandates) to the master entity.
- Add the alternate name as an Alias to the master entity profile.
- Delete the redundant entity from More Actions → Delete Entity. Future Sonar uploads will automatically match the alias to the master record.