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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?

#521

Post by alkonaut »

nitwit005 wrote: post #184
alkonaut wrote: post #98

So first of all everyone has read "falsehoods programmers believe about names". And of course everyone knows we should just use "name" and that's it. Perhaps a greeting/displayname if we need to do "Hello $customer" in an email. But still. There are often hard requirements that are impossible to reconcile with the "just store one name" idea. As an example: you need to produce alphabetically sorted lists. It would rar…

Presenting an alphabetically sorted list only really makes sense if you can force everyone to use a single alphabet.

Yes. What I’m talking about is of course a system where 100% use the same alphabet and 99.99% the same name format.

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

#523

Post by skissane »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #490
skissane wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the global point of view the exceptional case is the American one, Name Middle Family. That’s not really “American”. Most other Anglophone countries are mostly the same. Maybe it should be called “Anglophone” not “American”? To a certain extent, even “West European” There are some subtle differences - my impression is the US is more accepting of generational suffixes (Jr, III, etc) than Australia is, for insta…

Is it really true that most Anglophone countries are the same? Is that how they do it in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, the Philippines, Jamaica, Singapore, Trinidad and Tobago, Botswana, Ghana, South Africa, and Fiji? There are a lot more Anglophone countries than just the US, Canada, UK, and Australia.

I think we should distinguish between (1) traditional English naming practices, and Anglophone countries which have inherited those from England, and (2) countries with a majority non-European cultural background which have adopted the English language, but some or many of whose naming practices derive from that non-European cultural background. When I said "Anglophone", I was really talking about (1) not (2). Maybe I should have said "Anglosphere". But, I don't actually know to what extent majority non-European Anglophone countries ("Anglophone but not Anglosphere") take their naming practices from England vs from their non-European culture(s); quite possibly, for some of them, much of their naming practices are derived from English/British culture not their non-European culture(s), and hence in terms of "First Middle Last" may be indistinguishable from (1).

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

#524

Post by skissane »

numpad0 wrote: post #339
skissane wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the global point of view the exceptional case is the American one, Name Middle Family. That’s not really “American”. Most other Anglophone countries are mostly the same. Maybe it should be called “Anglophone” not “American”? To a certain extent, even “West European” There are some subtle differences - my impression is the US is more accepting of generational suffixes (Jr, III, etc) than Australia is, for insta…

> Most other Anglophone countries are mostly the same. I don't have any French or German or Polish friends to verify but this is so demonstably false just by reading some of comments here. Name Middle Family is clearly at most American.

> Name Middle Family is clearly at most American.

It isn't "at most American" because UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand also mostly use "Name Middle Family", just like the US does. There are still some differences in their naming practices, but those differences generally relate to subtler issues, not the big picture issue of name order.

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

#525

Post by mikhailfranco »

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…

When I worked for an ecommerce retailer in the UK, we had a title field, with some preset choices and a freeform other option.

The sw dev looked up a bunch of titles - Sir, Dame, Lord, Duke, Earl, Baron, Bishop, Prince, Princess, Reverend - and decided the DB field could be 8 letters.

Of course it broke for the first Archbishop.

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

#526

Post by evolve2k »

e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #420
evolve2k wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes assume I have a Family name field and a Given Name field, the question is how to display them in the right order. Im considering having a select field next to the name something like Name Order: "Western style", "Eastern style" or Name Order: "Given Name, Family Name", "Family name, Given Name" With a bit of extra work I can detect the country set a default for this field, while allowing users in places like Paki…

As others have mentioned, this is impossible to get right -- for the simple reason that there is no consistent order -- not for the same country, the same geographic area, the same culture, or any other marker you can possibly think of. Example: in Malaysia and Singapore, Chinese people can have traditional Chinese names -- SAA for surname and 2 characters that's their "given name" so to speak. Some have an English n…

What have you seen as best examples of interfaces that support your local context.

Anyone ideas beyond throw everything together in one long field.

Part of what’s lost with this approach is you then don’t really know which part is which. Aka loss of semantic clarity.

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

#527

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

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 (…

Would it be better to have "full legal name" and "preferred name"?

To clarify the purpose of the two

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