131–140 of 262 posts
There is an excellent Chinese singer (of German Lieder , as it happens), who used to go by the name of Shen Yang (with Shen being the family name). Now, quoting Wikipedia: > he went on to win the 2007 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.[4] After the win, noting confusion in the Western press over the name "Shen Yang", he decided to change its spelling to "Shenyang". So that's somewhat unexpected, because whi…
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> This is fantastic. Living in both the English and Japanese-speaking worlds [...] I think consistency is preferable If I'm not mistaken, his suggestion would make the Japanese convention less consistent with the English convention (while making it more consistent with the Chinese convention).
It would make the English rendering of Japanese names consistent with … well, themselves. 安倍 (Abe) 晋三 (Shinzo) will be Abe Shinzo, not Shinzo Abe. The Japanese don't reverse Western names, so Steve Jobs is never Jobs Steve.
Do the Japanese write Western names in the latin alphabet ("Steve Jobs"), or do they transform it into their own script based on how it sounds? If it's kept in the latin alphabet, of course they don't reverse it, the same way we wouldn't reverse it if we kept "Shinzo Abe" in Japanese script ("安倍 晋三").
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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.
Good luck with mcguire. ;-)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundex
EDIT: I guess there are better ones: metaphone [2] is a modern improvement on soundex.
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This doesn't work in media that doesn't distinguish letters by case. That's still fairly common for things like forms and other official records that only use capital letters. Obviously, the correct answer is XML: Shinzo Abe
Except people are going to enter the name incorrectly anyway, as you demonstrated. (Abe is his family name.)
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Chinese and Japanese, however, usually adopts the preference of locale name ordering. For example, Stephen Paul Jobs is rendered from Roman to Kana as スティーブン・ポール・“スティーブ”・ジョブズ Suteibun Pouru Jobuzu In Chinese as 史蒂夫·喬布斯 Shidifu Qiaobusi
But still, as you notice, in the right order. Transliteration doesn't really come into it. Of course the Japanese would write スティーブ・ジョブス (but emphatically not ジョブス・スティーブ) rather than Steve Jobs, just the same way as we write Abe Shinzo rather than 安倍晋三.
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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)
> 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) On the other hand, it'd be pretty hard for the surname to occur in the middle of the name, where you have the 刘.
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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:…
That's interesting, I thought the given name in Chinese was almost always two characters. Is this not the case? 我是中文学生 :) Funnily the first thing you learn in Chinese is how to say who you are. But there's very little help with actually picking a Chinese name!
Any 'always' cases with names are never to be trusted. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...
The standard English translation of her name is Kanade Sato. However, when I use google translate on links in Japanese like articles that mention her, it is amazing how often it comes out quite different, including putting the Sato first.
I would also like to mention that Japanese writing has several different systems. First there is Kanji, which is straight from Chinese script. Then there are a couple of syllable-based systems, and finally they use Roman script for many foreign words. Sentences tend to be a mix of Kanji and syllable-based words. Also interesting is that there are usually no spaces between words, and the reader is expected to figure it out on their own. But if this might be too confusing, then a dot is added in between.
One more oddity. Kanji characters can,as I understand it, have more than one word associated with them. As a consequence, there is a drummer in Japan whose given name is usually translated as Senri, but sometimes Chisato.
Kanade and Senri together (skip the first minute, it's just the MC lady talking) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sf3DgS3LEA
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Or just not read tabloids which, despite being rags, should know better anyway. Actually, it's because a journalistic publication should know better that I'm inclined to call such an example wilful ignorance. People not knowing the Japanese name order, that's something that can be overcome with just the most minor amount of education. People who steadfastly get it wrong despite the standards of their profession, they…
>Or just not read tabloids You make a good point. If only the likes of The Guardian and Bloomberg didn't make it to the front page on HN regularly.