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Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

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Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#341

Post by Hamuko »

The name order isn't your only issue to worry about. A Japanese system might be expected to have two fields, one for the name as it's written and another for pronounciation. Just in case someone decides that 小鳥遊 as a name is pronounced as たかなし.

I remember Amazon.co.jp having two name fields when you registered a new user, and in English they were called "Your name" and "Your name again", because a name pronounciation field probably makes little sense as a concept to most non-Japanese speakers.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#342

Post by nerdponx »

ghaff wrote: post #335
johneth wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GOV.UK design system[1] agrees with you: > "Use single or multiple fields depending on your user’s needs. Not everyone’s name fits the first-name, last-name format. Using multiple name fields mean there’s more risk that a person’s name will not fit the format you’ve chosen and that it is entered incorrectly." and > "Avoid asking users for their title. It’s extra work for them and you’re asking them to potentially…

>> "Avoid asking users for their title. It’s extra work for them and you’re asking them to potentially reveal their gender and marital status, which they may not want to do." I'm always a bit surprised when I see some e.g. tech conferences still insisting on title as a mandatory field (or really asking at all). It's not just the gender and the marital status but some people attach a lot of significance to all manner…

I certainly don't mind being called "Mr.", but I don't see why it can't just be another field, or part of a free-text field.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#343

Post by [deleted] »

Semiapies wrote: post #332
rsynnott wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorting. Though I don't think there's a culture-agnostic way to do this, either.

Not universally, no. The closest for English-language use is to put a spurious comma between family and given name (e.g., "Cixin, Liu" for Cixin Liu). In an ebook management system I've been developing, I use a full_name and a sort_name field for authors/editors/contributors, because books are a reasonable thing to want to sort by author names.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#344

Post by trimethylpurine »

zamalek wrote: post #284
weinzierl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same." This is the way to go. "The family/given name format doesn't make much sense here." It doesn't make much sense in many places all over the world. In Germany technically speaking our given names are a set and we can have many of them. While it is practically necessary to write them out in a certain order in our documents, from a legal s…

> "Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same." > This is the way to go. Agreed. Does anyone know of any reason to care about first/last, apart from it being part of My First SQL Database and sating our inner desire to create pointless taxonomies?

If you mean for yourself, yes. Do you want to have an easy time when you interact with a reality that assumes things about you, or do you want to spend a lot of time and effort accomplishing basic tasks as an outlier in a system that doesn't expect you? If you mean for your database, it depends on purpose. The same reality applies. Think about integration, for example.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#345

Post by smeej »

Semiapies wrote: post #332
rsynnott wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorting. Though I don't think there's a culture-agnostic way to do this, either.

Not universally, no. The closest for English-language use is to put a spurious comma between family and given name (e.g., "Cixin, Liu" for Cixin Liu). In an ebook management system I've been developing, I use a full_name and a sort_name field for authors/editors/contributors, because books are a reasonable thing to want to sort by author names.

Even this has some culturally confusing elements, doesn't it?

For example, in my studies I had cause to read many books by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Nobody ever referred to him as "von Balthasar," just "Balthasar," but his books were always sorted by the "von."

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#346

Post by registeredcorn »

YesJustWolf wrote: post #323
muzani wrote: post #67

Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same. The family/given name format doesn't make much sense here. Indian name: Sathiavelllu Arunachalam, known as SA or Seth SE Asian ethnic Chinese names: Harry Lee Kuan Yew, (English name) (Surname) (Given name). Hated the name Harry and got it removed, though many Chinese are referred to by an English name. Indonesian name: Fatimah Azzahra (…

And don't forget people with just a single name. Filling in computer forms that require two names is the bane of my existence.

I would be interested to hear, how do you feel about simply entering "None" or something to that effect? I realize it may not be the literal correct version of your name, but do you feel like that is a reasonable compromise? I work with a system that makes exceptions for the circumstance you're talking about, but do wonder what you do in other platforms.

I would also mention that I feel your pain to a degree. My wife has an extremely uncommon female name, but the spelling is very close to a common male name. Many times she has run into people "fixing" her name for her without saying anything only for it to cause issues months later, or people calling her by the name they assumed she meant to type. It's incredibly aggravating to deal with. Lots of missed emails. Lots of phone calls of helpful people informing her of the "error".

At times, I wish the entire naming system were replaced with something that had no room for error or miscommunication. Everyone is called Larry or something.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#347

Post by sigwinch28 »

johneth wrote: post #247
muzani wrote: post #67

Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same. The family/given name format doesn't make much sense here. Indian name: Sathiavelllu Arunachalam, known as SA or Seth SE Asian ethnic Chinese names: Harry Lee Kuan Yew, (English name) (Surname) (Given name). Hated the name Harry and got it removed, though many Chinese are referred to by an English name. Indonesian name: Fatimah Azzahra (…

The GOV.UK design system[1] agrees with you: > "Use single or multiple fields depending on your user’s needs. Not everyone’s name fits the first-name, last-name format. Using multiple name fields mean there’s more risk that a person’s name will not fit the format you’ve chosen and that it is entered incorrectly." and > "Avoid asking users for their title. It’s extra work for them and you’re asking them to potentially…

On the other hand, HM Passport Office absolutely loves titles:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/titles-included-i...

My personal favourite is if you change your first name to “Sir” and you are not actually a “Knight”, then you get the note “THE REFERENCE TO SIR IS TO THE HOLDER’S NAME AND NOT TO THE HOLDER’S TITLE” printed in your passport.

Context: I wanted “Dr.” to be added to my passport.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#348

Post by ghaff »

Hamuko wrote: post #336
johneth wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GOV.UK design system[1] agrees with you: > "Use single or multiple fields depending on your user’s needs. Not everyone’s name fits the first-name, last-name format. Using multiple name fields mean there’s more risk that a person’s name will not fit the format you’ve chosen and that it is entered incorrectly." and > "Avoid asking users for their title. It’s extra work for them and you’re asking them to potentially…

Title is the one that always confuses me since titles are basically non-existent here. It seems really like a really important thing in the Anglosphere and I have no idea why. I just always pick "Dr" when I'm forced to pick one. So far it has never made any difference.

(PhD) Dr. is a funny one in the Anglosphere and also at least parts of continental Europe (and possibly elsewhere). It's sort of a big deal in academia and some percentage of other people feel pretty attached to the title. For others, the attitude is more it's just a degree and lots of people have advanced degrees that we don't go around using honorifics for.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#349

Post by SamBam »

Hamuko wrote: post #336
johneth wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GOV.UK design system[1] agrees with you: > "Use single or multiple fields depending on your user’s needs. Not everyone’s name fits the first-name, last-name format. Using multiple name fields mean there’s more risk that a person’s name will not fit the format you’ve chosen and that it is entered incorrectly." and > "Avoid asking users for their title. It’s extra work for them and you’re asking them to potentially…

Title is the one that always confuses me since titles are basically non-existent here. It seems really like a really important thing in the Anglosphere and I have no idea why. I just always pick "Dr" when I'm forced to pick one. So far it has never made any difference.

My wife picked "Baroness" once from a drop down, and now we always know that they sold her info when we get junk mail addressed to "Baroness So-and-so."

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#350

Post by SeanLuke »

Wait until you see Icelandic names where there is no last name at all. Björk's "last name" is Guðmundsdóttir, because she is the daughter of Guðmundur, whose "last name" is Gunnarsson, because he is the son of...

The Indian name situation, going by initials instead, is particularly interesting. There is a famous professor I know who goes by initials because his second name is forty letters long.

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