diff --git a/internal/check-pg-name-gate.mjs b/internal/check-pg-name-gate.mjs
index cf7b68f3a..671183b29 100644
--- a/internal/check-pg-name-gate.mjs
+++ b/internal/check-pg-name-gate.mjs
@@ -5,13 +5,14 @@
 //   A. the table loads (data/pplr/pg-names.json, the file the tree serves as assets/pplr/pg-names.json);
 //   B. REAL ROWS: Balantak, Balo, Abaga and Abai Sungai (translated as words) show English in every locale;
 //      Balangao Bontoc (a transliteration) shows its own names; it and ro, which have no column, show English;
-//   C. TWO-SIDED on planted rows: a transliteration with its Latin names replaced by words falls back, and the
-//      same row with one far locale still passes (the rule is "two or more");
-//   D. the whole table falls back between 30% and 45% (measured 37.6%, 8,055 of 21,419). A similarity that
+//   C. TWO-SIDED on planted rows, AT the threshold: EXACTLY two far Latin locales falls back, one is kept (the rule
+//      is "two or more"); a row with only one Latin name to check is not trusted (no evidence → English);
+//   D. the whole table falls back between 30% and 45% (measured 38.2%, 8,172 of 21,419). A similarity that
 //      always says "same" (0%) or always "different" (100%) fails here even if B and C were tuned around;
 //   E. THE ONE-READER RULE: a file in library/ or plugin-designs/ that names pg-names must take its names through
-//      peopleGroupName.js. pplr-data-maps is the carded exception (its coverage views read raw rows on purpose).
-//      A NEGATIVE CONTROL runs the scanner on a planted raw reader and must catch it.
+//      peopleGroupName.js, and must not index its rows itself (`.names[`) even when it imports the helper.
+//      pplr-data-maps is the carded exception (its coverage views read raw rows on purpose). NEGATIVE CONTROLS: a
+//      planted raw reader, and a planted file that imports the helper AND indexes rows, must both be caught.
 import { readFileSync, readdirSync, statSync } from 'node:fs'
 import { resolve, dirname, join, relative } from 'node:path'
 import { fileURLToPath, pathToFileURL } from 'node:url'
@@ -56,22 +57,26 @@ ok(name(220001, 'it') === 'Balangao Bontoc' && name(220001, 'ro') === 'Balangao
 
 // ── C: planted rows, two-sided ──
 const planted = (fn) => { const r = bb.slice(); fn(r); return r }
-const words = planted((r) => { r[locales.indexOf('fr')] = 'Sac à dos'; r[locales.indexOf('es')] = 'Mochila'; r[locales.indexOf('de')] = 'Rucksack' })
+const twoFar = planted((r) => { r[locales.indexOf('fr')] = 'Sac à dos'; r[locales.indexOf('de')] = 'Rucksack' })
 const oneFar = planted((r) => { r[locales.indexOf('fr')] = 'Sac à dos' })
-ok(!H.isTransliterated(words, locales) && H.peopleGroupName(words, locales, 'ar') === 'Balangao Bontoc' && H.isTransliterated(oneFar, locales),
-  `planted rows: three words → ${H.isTransliterated(words, locales) ? 'KEPT' : 'fell back'}, one word → ${H.isTransliterated(oneFar, locales) ? 'kept' : 'FELL BACK'}`,
-  'planted: a row with three Latin names replaced by words falls back (ar too); one far locale alone is kept')
+const oneLatin = planted((r) => { for (const l of H.LATIN_LOCALES) if (l !== 'fr') r[locales.indexOf(l)] = '' })
+const kept = (r) => (H.isTransliterated(r, locales) ? 'kept' : 'English')
+ok(kept(twoFar) === 'English' && H.peopleGroupName(twoFar, locales, 'ar') === 'Balangao Bontoc' && kept(oneFar) === 'kept'
+  && kept(oneLatin) === 'English' && H.peopleGroupName(oneLatin, locales, 'ar', 'Balangao Bontoc') === 'Balangao Bontoc',
+  `planted rows: exactly two far → ${kept(twoFar)}, one far → ${kept(oneFar)}, one Latin name only → ${kept(oneLatin)}`,
+  'planted, at the threshold: exactly two far Latin locales → English (ar too); one far → kept; only one Latin name to check → English')
 
 // ── D: the whole table ──
 let back = 0
 for (const row of Object.values(names)) if (!H.isTransliterated(row, locales)) back++
 const share = back / Object.keys(names).length
-ok(share > 0.30 && share < 0.45, `${back} rows (${(share * 100).toFixed(1)}%) fall back; expected 30-45% (measured 37.6%)`,
+ok(share > 0.30 && share < 0.45, `${back} rows (${(share * 100).toFixed(1)}%) fall back; expected 30-45% (measured 38.2%)`,
   `${back} of ${Object.keys(names).length} rows (${(share * 100).toFixed(1)}%) fall back to English`)
 
 // ── E: one reader ──
 const EXEMPT = ['plugin-designs/pplr-data-maps/']
-const rawReaders = (files) => files.filter(({ path, src }) => /pg-names/.test(src) && !/peopleGroupName(\.js)?['"]/.test(src) && !EXEMPT.some((x) => path.startsWith(x)))
+const rawReaders = (files) => files.filter(({ path, src }) => /pg-names/.test(src) && !EXEMPT.some((x) => path.startsWith(x))
+  && (!/peopleGroupName(\.js)?['"]/.test(src) || /\.names\s*\[/.test(src)))
 const walk = (dir, out = []) => {
   for (const f of readdirSync(dir)) {
     if (f === 'node_modules' || f.startsWith('.')) continue
@@ -82,8 +87,12 @@ const walk = (dir, out = []) => {
   return out
 }
 const sources = [...walk(P('library')), ...walk(P('plugin-designs'))].filter((f) => f.path !== 'library/utils/peopleGroupName.js')
-ok(rawReaders([{ path: 'plugin-designs/x/x.vue', src: "fetch(base + '/pplr/pg-names.json').then((t) => t.names[code][3])" }]).length === 1,
-  'NEGATIVE CONTROL: the one-reader scan missed a planted raw reader', 'negative control: a planted raw pg-names reader is caught')
+const PLANT_RAW = "fetch(base + '/pplr/pg-names.json').then((t) => t.names[code][3])"
+const PLANT_BOTH = "import { peopleGroupName } from '@map/utils/peopleGroupName.js'\n" + PLANT_RAW
+const PLANT_GOOD = "import { peopleGroupName } from '@map/utils/peopleGroupName.js'\nfetch(base + '/pplr/pg-names.json').then((t) => peopleGroupName(t.names && row, t.locales, lang, name))"
+ok(rawReaders([{ path: 'plugin-designs/x/a.vue', src: PLANT_RAW }, { path: 'plugin-designs/x/b.vue', src: PLANT_BOTH }, { path: 'plugin-designs/x/c.vue', src: PLANT_GOOD }]).map((f) => f.path).join() === 'plugin-designs/x/a.vue,plugin-designs/x/b.vue',
+  'NEGATIVE CONTROL: the one-reader scan missed a planted raw reader (or flagged a helper-only one)',
+  'negative controls: a raw reader, and one that imports the helper AND indexes rows, are both caught; a helper-only reader passes')
 const raw = rawReaders(sources).map((f) => f.path)
 ok(!raw.length, `pg-names read outside peopleGroupName.js: ${raw.join(', ')}`,
   `no file outside peopleGroupName.js reads pg-names rows (${sources.length} sources; pplr-data-maps carded)`)
diff --git a/library/utils/peopleGroupName.js b/library/utils/peopleGroupName.js
index d66fd1f8a..18493e0dc 100644
--- a/library/utils/peopleGroupName.js
+++ b/library/utils/peopleGroupName.js
@@ -13,7 +13,8 @@
  * (bigram Dice similarity, accents folded). When TWO OR MORE of them fall below 0.5, the row is a translation, and
  * EVERY locale of that group shows English, because the non-Latin names (ar, hi, ru, zh) came from the same
  * process and cannot be checked directly.
- * Measured on the whole table (2026-09-30): 8,055 of 21,419 rows (37.6%) fall back. Balantak, Balo, Abaga and Abai
+ * Measured on the whole table: 8,055 of 21,419 rows (37.6%) are translations, and 117 more have fewer than two
+ * Latin names to check, so they are not trusted either: 8,172 (38.2%) show English. Balantak, Balo, Abaga and Abai
  * Sungai fall back; Balangao Bontoc keeps its names. The 0.4-0.5 band (1,406 rows) is about half wrong (Bawaria →
  * "Bavière", Ager → "Agriculteur"), so 0.5 is the safer side: a wrongly kept translation is the worse error.
  *
@@ -28,6 +29,7 @@
 export const LATIN_LOCALES = ['fr', 'pt', 'es', 'tl', 'id', 'de']
 export const MIN_SIMILARITY = 0.5
 export const MAX_FAR_LOCALES = 1   // two or more far locales → the row is a translation
+export const MIN_LATIN_EVIDENCE = 2 // fewer Latin names than this → no evidence either way → English
 
 // The app's locales → pg-names.json's. it and ro have no column, so they show English.
 const LOCALE_COLUMN = { en: 'en', es: 'es', fr: 'fr', pt: 'pt', de: 'de', ru: 'ru', ar: 'ar', hi: 'hi', zh: 'zh_CN' }
@@ -47,22 +49,28 @@ export function nameSimilarity(a, b) {
   return (2 * shared) / (x.length - 1 + y.length - 1)
 }
 
-/** True when the row's names are transliterations (keep them), false when they were translated as words. */
+/**
+ * True when the row's names are transliterations (keep them), false when they were translated as words. A row with
+ * fewer than MIN_LATIN_EVIDENCE Latin names cannot be checked (117 rows), so it is NOT trusted: English.
+ */
 export function isTransliterated(row, locales) {
   if (!Array.isArray(row) || !Array.isArray(locales)) return false
   const en = row[locales.indexOf('en')]
   if (!en) return false
-  let far = 0
+  let far = 0, seen = 0
   for (const l of LATIN_LOCALES) {
     const v = row[locales.indexOf(l)]
-    if (v && nameSimilarity(v, en) < MIN_SIMILARITY) far++
+    if (!v) continue
+    seen++
+    if (nameSimilarity(v, en) < MIN_SIMILARITY) far++
   }
-  return far <= MAX_FAR_LOCALES
+  return seen >= MIN_LATIN_EVIDENCE && far <= MAX_FAR_LOCALES
 }
 
 /**
  * The name to show for a group: its `lang` name when the row is a transliteration and has that column, else
- * `english` (the caller's own English name; the row's English column when the caller has none).
+ * `english`. ★ CALLERS ALWAYS PASS `english` (the record's own name): it is what a fallback shows, and a row the
+ * table does not have (row undefined) has no English column to fall back to, so without it the result is ''.
  */
 export function peopleGroupName(row, locales, lang, english) {
   const en = english || (Array.isArray(row) && Array.isArray(locales) ? row[locales.indexOf('en')] : '') || ''
@@ -72,4 +80,4 @@ export function peopleGroupName(row, locales, lang, english) {
   return (typeof v === 'string' && v.trim()) ? v : en
 }
 
-export default { peopleGroupName, isTransliterated, nameSimilarity, LATIN_LOCALES, MIN_SIMILARITY, MAX_FAR_LOCALES }
+export default { peopleGroupName, isTransliterated, nameSimilarity, LATIN_LOCALES, MIN_SIMILARITY, MAX_FAR_LOCALES, MIN_LATIN_EVIDENCE }
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 720e87a29..13fda8a0d 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -577,7 +577,7 @@
     "check:pinned-umd": "library/utils/loadPinnedUmd.js (d3 for PPLR and the Wall) loads a pinned UMD with SRI and never touches the host page's global of the same name: a host's own d3 gains no keys, a failed load leaves it in place. Headless.",
     "check:popup-escaping": "the library's pin and region popups render hostile data (an <img onerror>, a <script>, a javascript: URL) as text, never markup: every field goes through escapeHtml/safeUrl (library/utils/html.js). Headless.",
     "check:ported-globals-identical": "the DX Life base/_globals.scss rules that shadow-root components used to copy now come from one module (library/styles/portedGlobals.js), and the CSS each component actually INJECTS must be byte-identical to the pre-refactor baseline: it runs each component's setup with stubbed imports and hashes the real useShadowStyles argument, not the source text. Deduplication with a proof that no pixel can change. Node only, no browser.",
-    "check:pg-name-gate": "a people group's localized name (assets/pplr/pg-names.json) is shown only when it is a transliteration: library/utils/peopleGroupName.js falls back to English for EVERY locale of a row whose Latin-script names are far from the English one in two or more locales (bigram Dice < 0.5), because about a third were machine-translated as words (Balantak → 'Balance', Balo → 'Sac à dos'). Proved on the real table: the 4 known translated rows show English in 7 locales, Balangao Bontoc keeps its names, planted rows two-sided, the whole-table fallback stays 30-45% (37.6%), and no file outside the helper reads pg-names rows (pplr-data-maps carded; the scanner is negative-controlled). Headless.",
+    "check:pg-name-gate": "a people group's localized name (assets/pplr/pg-names.json) is shown only when it is a transliteration: library/utils/peopleGroupName.js falls back to English for EVERY locale of a row whose Latin-script names are far from the English one in two or more locales (bigram Dice < 0.5), because about a third were machine-translated as words (Balantak → 'Balance', Balo → 'Sac à dos'). A row with fewer than two Latin names cannot be checked and shows English too. Proved on the real table: the 4 known translated rows show English in 7 locales, Balangao Bontoc keeps its names, planted rows AT the threshold (exactly two far → English, one → kept, one Latin name → English), the whole-table fallback stays 30-45% (38.2%), and no file outside the helper reads or indexes pg-names rows (pplr-data-maps carded; the scanner is negative-controlled both ways). Headless.",
     "check:pin-selection": "the shared source reader understands BOTH engines: mapbox-gl stores a GeoJSON source _data as the FeatureCollection, maplibre-gl wraps it as { geojson } (or { url } when remote). Reading only the Mapbox shape returned an EMPTY list on MapLibre — the keyless engine public builds use — which silently killed zoomToLegendRow camera fits on three maps and the research packet row selection, with no error because every caller no-ops on no features. Asserts both shapes, that a remote source returns [] AND warns, the serialize fallback, and that selectedPinIds agrees with the reader. Headless, no map. Exit 0 pass, 1 fail.",
     "check:popup-href-escaped": "a URL interpolated into an HTML string is escaped before it lands in href= or src=. Written for RegionCountryMap's popup, which escaped every value except its two link URLs -- both built from joinBase(hostAttribute, apiSlug), so a quote in either escaped the attribute. Data URLs, blob URLs, encodeURIComponent and safeUrl() are recognised as safe; anything else needs an href-escaped-ok: reason. 6 self-tests. Source-only, headless.",
     "check:poster-action-print": "a poster button opens the print dialog (the rule since 2026-09-28: never a direct download). Two arms: PosterWall's posterAction defaults to 'print' and any consumer opting into 'download' carries a posterAction-download: comment saying why; and no shipped file hand-rolls an <a download> for a poster IMAGE (svg/png/webp/pdf) without first attempting to print, which the prop arm cannot see. Data exports (csv/txt/json) are out of scope. 6 self-tests. Source-only, headless.",