[derek73]

Answers question 4 of #853 (whether the md title decision holds up against filed data). Questions 1–3 (title words after another title, Wing, the period-marked Ma.) stay open on the issue, so this PR does not close it.

What changes

md loses its title reading and keeps its credential reading. Its excluded academic entry in en.toml carries the reason.

Input	1.4.0 – 2.5.0	Now
Mr Md Karim Uddin	title Mr Md, given Karim	title Mr, given Md, middle Karim
Md Rahman	title Md, given empty	given Md, family Rahman
John Smith, MD Jones	title MD, given Jones, family John Smith	family Smith, suffix MD Jones
John Smith MD, John Smith, MD	suffix MD	unchanged

A leading Md now reads the way the spelled-out Mohammad already did.

Evidence

The psc-individuals local corpus (#849) has 1,300 names whose forename box starts with Md. 1,246 of those filers typed Md alone in the forename box (37 as Md.), most putting the rest of the given name in the middle box. Each candidate reading scored against the filed boxes:

Reading	given = forename box	given left empty
title (before this PR)	0	94
credential only (this PR)	1,207	3
bound given name, like abdul	152	0

The bound-given reading was declined: it would make Md join the next word, which Mohammad doesn't do.

Moves in the other local corpora, against the same tree with md added back as a title:

• ClinicalTrials.gov officials: 417 moved. 379 are the John Smith, MD Jones shape, fixed.
• FEC: 10 moved, 9 of them broken (cost 2 below).
• UK Electoral Commission: 4 moved, all to given.
• Committed corpora: 16 entries. The recipe and figures are in the new decisions/indic-honorifics entry.

Accepted costs

Both are pinned as case rows and recorded in the decisions entry.

1. A particle behind Md starts the family: Md Abu Sayed → family Abu Sayed (18 PSC names). Mohammad Abu Sayed already reads this way.
2. Uddin, Md Karim reads the given part as credentials (rules/C13) and reports suffix-or-name (9 FEC names). Titles in front don't stop it: Uddin, Mr Md Karim gives title Mr, suffix Md Karim. Marking md ambiguous would fix this, but every John Smith MD would then report too.

Not changed

• The period-marked Md. is still a title by the rules/H2 shape (Should a title word written after another title be the given name (Mr Sultan Khan, Mr Md Karim Uddin)? #853 question 3).
• The Bengali মোঃ/মো entries stay titles; no filed data reaches them.

Other edits

• Case rows, rule examples (C9, C11, C12, C13, H3, H4, H6, S7), decisions Standing lines and code comments that used MD as their title/suffix dual now use RA. RA reads exactly as MD did at 1.4.0, 2.3.0 and the parent; I checked this against the wheels.
• The pair-scan benchmark's negative control was re-taken with RA: 120 → 1,620 at 47fb2b2, 35 → 131 on this tree.
• decisions/C13's Should a comma part opening with a credential be a suffix comma? John Smith, PhD Jones reads family John Smith #603 entry gains a supersession note, since it had kept John Smith, MD Jones at its 2.3 reading.
• The snapshot, the CLDR agreement record and the projected corpora were re-recorded. No CLDR rendering went from agreeing to disagreeing, and three titles now agree.

Verified on this branch: the full suite on 3.11 and 3.15, ruff, mypy, sphinx-build -b doctest and the README doctest.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 99.05%. Comparing base (04f806d) to head (fd07040).

Additional details and impacted files

@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##           master     #860   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage   99.05%   99.05%           
=======================================
  Files          47       47           
  Lines        4669     4669           
=======================================
  Hits         4625     4625           
  Misses         44       44           

☔ View full report in Codecov by Harness.
📢 Have feedback on the report? Share it here.

🚀 New features to boost your workflow:

• ❄️ Test Analytics: Detect flaky tests, report on failures, and find test suite problems.