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Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#31

Post by kapep »

jlv2 wrote: post #14
xxpor wrote: post #2

English should adopt the French convention of capitalizing the family (last) name. For example, this would make it ABE Shinzo, which would remove ambiguity. When encountering East (thanks for the reminder) Asian (or Hungarian, for that matter) names in emails for example, I'm usually worried about if their "last" name in the directory is their given name and what they should be addressed by or their actual last name.

My last name is mixed case, so capitalizing it makes it wrong.

It makes all names wrong but I guess mixed case names are probably harder to read. "Small Caps" could be used to avoid that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_caps

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#32

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

bitwize wrote: post #26
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hatsune Miku and her fellow vocaloids also seem to be an exception. They're not real people of course, but they may as well be here.

I always thought Miku was her given name.

It is, that's why she's an exception (to the practice of writing Japanese surnames last in English).

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#33

Post by knolax »

falsedan wrote: post #24
knolax wrote: post #19

Why can't we just write names as "Smith, John" when it's in the Asian order and "John Smith" or "John·Smith" if its in the Western order? It would remove all the ambiguity using already existing conventions.

It disregards the cultural history of names to suit what’s easiest for Western Europeans to understand.

I really don't see how it "It disregards the cultural history of names". As far as I'm concerned the order of the names is just a minor grammatical difference.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#34

Post by jcrawfordor »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #29
jlv2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My last name is mixed case, so capitalizing it makes it wrong.

Wrong, or contrary to your preferred style? I see names like Macdonald and MacDonald, where one family prefers the mid-capitalisation to another or family names like De Havilland. But it seems like a reasonable disambiguation to capitalise a family name. Could you be more specific about what makes it "wrong". FWIW my family name is commonly misspelt, life is too short to get too hung up about it. In my case it's just…

In genealogical research it's typical to not only standardize capitalization of family names (typically to ALL CAPS) but to also standardize spelling to the most common or first used spelling. Otherwise searching becomes a very frustrating venture, and these things change surprisingly quickly through generations.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#35

Post by knolax »

azinman2 wrote: post #23
knolax wrote: post #19

Why can't we just write names as "Smith, John" when it's in the Asian order and "John Smith" or "John·Smith" if its in the Western order? It would remove all the ambiguity using already existing conventions.

Because the comma breaks English grammar when it’s in the middle of a sentence.

That's a good point. Perhaps we could use Smith`John since the grave character is rarely used.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#36

Post by GordonS »

ylyn wrote: post #6
xxpor wrote: post #2

English should adopt the French convention of capitalizing the family (last) name. For example, this would make it ABE Shinzo, which would remove ambiguity. When encountering East (thanks for the reminder) Asian (or Hungarian, for that matter) names in emails for example, I'm usually worried about if their "last" name in the directory is their given name and what they should be addressed by or their actual last name.

This does happen in Singapore.

Is this common? We used to have an office in SG, and I don't recall ever seeing it.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#37

Post by jasonjei »

HuShifang wrote: post #18
xxpor wrote: post #2

English should adopt the French convention of capitalizing the family (last) name. For example, this would make it ABE Shinzo, which would remove ambiguity. When encountering East (thanks for the reminder) Asian (or Hungarian, for that matter) names in emails for example, I'm usually worried about if their "last" name in the directory is their given name and what they should be addressed by or their actual last name.

Agree. This is, actually, a regular (if not standard) practice in many domains of academic bibliography for Chinese authors (which is useful, as some individuals with Chinese personal and family names working in Anglophone contexts do follow the English convention of putting personal names first -- meaning that you often can't tell which is the personal and which is the family name in pinyin, e.g. "Li Jia") Fun fact:…

I have seen emails from Japanese colleagues where the last name is capitalized for clarity.

Capitalization is particularly useful for Chinese names where names are not written in Chinese symbols (hanzi/漢字) because the romanized names could be ambiguous as to what is the first name; for example: 江劉鋒 JIANG Liufeng (where both Jiang and Liu could be potential Chinese surnames)

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#38

Post by yumraj »

xxpor wrote: post #2

English should adopt the French convention of capitalizing the family (last) name. For example, this would make it ABE Shinzo, which would remove ambiguity. When encountering East (thanks for the reminder) Asian (or Hungarian, for that matter) names in emails for example, I'm usually worried about if their "last" name in the directory is their given name and what they should be addressed by or their actual last name.

> When encountering Asian

Not Asian, East Asian[0]. Asia is big.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asia

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#39

Post by mcguire »

jlv2 wrote: post #14
xxpor wrote: post #2

English should adopt the French convention of capitalizing the family (last) name. For example, this would make it ABE Shinzo, which would remove ambiguity. When encountering East (thanks for the reminder) Asian (or Hungarian, for that matter) names in emails for example, I'm usually worried about if their "last" name in the directory is their given name and what they should be addressed by or their actual last name.

My last name is mixed case, so capitalizing it makes it wrong.

So is mine, but it would make life easier all around.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#40

Post by zapzupnz »

This is fantastic. Living in both the English and Japanese-speaking worlds, it'll be nice not having to go through mental gymnastics to remember how to call somebody in whichever language. I think consistency is preferable; it's surely not impossible for people to be educated on name order.
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