Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

The insistence on a surname is quite annoying for people who don't have one or use one. In India, there are many cultures where a surname or family name isn't used or isn't passed down from one generation to another and to the next and so on. There are cultures where a surname is used. But what's very common across the country is addressing people by their first (or only) names whether or not one is close to them. Even in writing (except in newspapers and TV), it's common to refer to people by their first (or only) names or to use the person's full name.

Most websites that need a name assume that everyone has a last name and make it mandatory. What's more ridiculous is that this habit is prevalent even in places where it may be uncommon (like in some parts of India)! Even Jesus didn't really have a surname that was used everywhere. Jews in those times (and for a much longer period) didn't have surnames either.

Instead of celebrating and appreciating the diversity among humans and human naming conventions, today's world thrives on forms that want to normalize things. It's just laziness and/or ignorance and/or unwillingness to learn.

See "Falsehood programmers believe about names". [1]

[1]: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#5

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 3:55 AM UTC

Naming is an interesting thing. I'm wrestling with it from another contex presently.

I'm reminded of the lines from Homer. in which the hero (himself given at least two names within the text, including one in its title) unambiguously (and rather rashly as it happens) identifies himself to Polyphemus:

    Cyclops, if any man of mortal birth
    Note thine unseemly blindness and inquire
    The occasion, tell him that Laertes' son,
    Ulysses, the destroyer of walled towns,
    Whose home is Ithaca, put out thine eye.

Ancestry, name, deeds, place.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#6

Post by LawnboyMax » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:02 AM UTC

Interestingly, Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius mentions "Galileo Galileo" on the cover.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereus_Nuncius

I wonder if this is at all related to the question asked in this article.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#7

Post by Iv » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #4

The insistence on a surname is quite annoying for people who don't have one or use one. In India, there are many cultures where a surname or family name isn't used or isn't passed down from one generation to another and to the next and so on. There are cultures where a surname is used. But what's very common across the country is addressing people by their first (or only) names whether or not one is close to them. Ev…

There was a stand up comedian of Algerian descent explaining that situation when the French administration tries to do the census of their colony. The custom was to use your father's and grandfather's name as a name. Problem is, many people, including brothers would have the most popular name (I think it was Mohammed). Having a Mohammed, son of Mohammed, grandson of Mohammed was common.

So the French admninistration gave arbitrary names to families. Algerians were rightfully angry about that.

But then it got me thinking about what kind of acceptable solution you would have. There are naming conventions that are good enough to keep track of people in a village of mid-sized town. Given name + Parents names.

Family names start appearing when you need to be able to identify a person unambiguously among the population of a big country. Some places never went through that phase, yet being able to identify unambiguously a person who may have changed address or even country is perfectly valid.

In the absence of a universal ID scheme, I don't see a way around forcing a working pattern into every culture, with the acceptance that some things may be lost in translation.

Jesus would have registered as "Jesus Bin Yoseph" to get a passport or an Amazon Prime account. His (hypothetical) children would have "Bin Jesus" as their family names.

Hopefully one day we have a UID for humans that can be mapped to a variety of naming scheme, but we are not there yet.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#8

Post by svat » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #4

The insistence on a surname is quite annoying for people who don't have one or use one. In India, there are many cultures where a surname or family name isn't used or isn't passed down from one generation to another and to the next and so on. There are cultures where a surname is used. But what's very common across the country is addressing people by their first (or only) names whether or not one is close to them. Ev…

Another consequence of insisting on surnames is that those without a surname are forced to append say their father's name as a surname, with the result that their name now becomes twice as long. Each of the individual names (of the person and their father) was about as long as needed to be somewhat unique (some sort of universal "full name" length), but with the artificially added surname, the resulting length is now two times that. Quite annoying to spell out such long names on the phone for instance.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#9

Post by Osiris » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:25 AM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #4

The insistence on a surname is quite annoying for people who don't have one or use one. In India, there are many cultures where a surname or family name isn't used or isn't passed down from one generation to another and to the next and so on. There are cultures where a surname is used. But what's very common across the country is addressing people by their first (or only) names whether or not one is close to them. Ev…

I'm working in a product right now where we've run into this and we have a ticket to remove the family name requirements.

Even if we remove the family name requirement from our end, a third party we use for identity verification still requires a family name, so how do we deal with that?

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#10

Post by aaron695 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:26 AM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #4

The insistence on a surname is quite annoying for people who don't have one or use one. In India, there are many cultures where a surname or family name isn't used or isn't passed down from one generation to another and to the next and so on. There are cultures where a surname is used. But what's very common across the country is addressing people by their first (or only) names whether or not one is close to them. Ev…

There simply is not enough entropy for one name. Even in a small village.

Hence why there are surnames (or equivalents, Jesus son of Joseph)

Not a normalisation.

True, surnames are used for hierarchical system hence why some people don't want to use them for instance.

But websites aren't here to pander to you.

They want to make $. The less entropy they have on you the better. It's not laziness and/or ignorance and/or unwillingness to learn.