In many older shows, guest cast are credited in the abbreviated manner or only partially. Unless you watch the episode you cannot know their full name.
For example, a character who is throughout the episode called "Uncle Martin" is in the credits only credited as "Wellman". This can sometimes make it hard to match photo and also be very difficult to know who he is in the character list. If he at one single instance in the episode wasn't referred to as "Martin Wellman" I wouldn't have known "Uncle Martin" and "Wellman" are the same character.
So, what I'm asking here, is it okay to update character names (not add AKAs which here wouldn't make sense) or do we need to keep it 100% as in the credits? I am guessing we actually should update them to the fullest known name, otherwise we wouldn't be accepting "Uncredited" characters either.
So for example, in this episode of Perry Mason...
https://www.tvmaze.com/episodes/85763/perry-mason-1x16-the-case-of-the-demure-defendant
...I've made these changes to character names based on what I heard them being called in the episode.
1) Credited name "Wellman" I've changed to "Martin Wellman (The Uncle)" - I've only added The Uncle part because the murder case was centered around him and his inheritance and he was the accused one's uncle.
2) Credited name "Dr. Denair" I've changed to "Dr. Bob Denair" - he was never actually referred to as Doctor or Denair and Perry always called him just Bob so I've concluded that's his name (could be abbreviation of Robert, though).
3) Credited name "Miss Wilson" I've changed to "Miss Wilson (The Nurse)" - if she were credited just as Wilson I would've changed it to "Nurse Wilson" but because she already had Miss, "Miss Nurse Wilson" wouldn't look right, imho
4) Credited name "Small Girl" I've changed to "Small Girl (Susie)" - the only small girl in this episode was referred to as Susie in the episode so I've added that in parenthesis, she was called that by the boy called Arthur Lindner, but I dunno if she was his friend of sister otherwise I would've added "Susie Lindner" for the name.
5) Credited name "Ballistic's Man" changed to "Ballistic's Man (Sgt. Davis)" - this character only briefly appeared and was referred to as ballistics expert and was called Sergeant Davis (could've been Davies).
Anyway, changes like those mentioned above, are those alright to do or should we stick to how certain character (at least for those credited) is listed in the credits and not alter it in any way?
