Sports Reference Blog

Just wanted to provide a quick heads up on a subtle change to Basketball-Reference. We have changed the name presentation for several dozen for ABA players to more accurately reflect what they were known as during their playing days, rather than their more formal names. Their formal full names will still appear on their pages (and turn up in search), but the main name we use for presenting the following players has been updated. These names were formerly merely listed as nicknames:

• Cincy Powell (formerly Cincinnatus)
• Randy Mahaffey (formerly Randolph)
• Art Becker (formerly Arthur)
• Jeff Congdon (formerly Jeffrey)
• Ron Thomas (formerly Ronald)
• Steve Wilson (formerly Stephen)
• Sam Robinson (formerly Samuel)
• Ron Franz (formerly Ronald)
• Ollie Taylor (formerly Oliver)
• Sam Watts (formerly Samuel)
• Don Sidle (formerly Donald)
• Ron Taylor (formerly Ronald)
• Merv Jackson (formerly Mervin)
• Rod McDonald (formerly Roderick)
• Charlie Beasley (formerly Charles)
• Rick Fisher (formerly Richard)
• Walt Piatkowski (formerly Walter)
• Bill Franklin (formerly William)
• Steve Previs (formerly Stephen)
• Walt Simon (formerly Walter)
• Pat McFarland (formerly Patrick)
• Wil Robinson (formerly Wilbert)
• Steve Vacendak (formerly Stephen)
• Dan Sparks (formerly Daniel)
• Les Selvage (formerly Lester)
• Rich Parks (formerly Richard)
• Sammy Little (formerly Samuel)
• Steve Kramer (formerly Steven)
• Charlie Hentz (formerly Charles)
• Ken Gardner (formerly Kenneth)
• Russ Critchfield (formerly Russell)
• Dick Clark (formerly Richard)
• Steve Chubin (formerly Stephen)
• Walt Byrd (formerly Walter)
• Wes Bialosuknia (formerly Wesley)
• Nate Barnett (formerly Nathaniel)
• Matt Aitch (formerly Matthew)
• Don Washington (formerly Donald)
• Phil Wagner (formerly Phillip)
• Mal Pradd (formerly Marlbert)
• Charley Parks (formerly Charles)
• Dave Lee (formerly David)
• Ron Kozlicki (formerly Ronald)
• Orb Bowling (formerly Orbie)
• Andy Anderson (formerly Andrew)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2022 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Data. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.