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- Label the fields FAMILY, GIVEN, MIDDLE (then put them in the order you desire) - Or simply put NAME
For a LOT of use cases, FULL NAME side-steps the issue and works out great. Sure your emails that go out are "Hi {{ full_name }}," but that's okay.
Personal opinion. As an Asian person, don’t overthink this. Just have fields for family name and given name to distinguish between the two. Sure, when there’s a text field saying hello “first name last name” it might be flipped but this shouldn’t be a deal breaker or offensive in any capacity. Worst case is you can have a toggle they can click but from a developer standpoint, that might be over engineering for someth…
In Vietnam names like Nguyen Thi Anh Mai are common.
The family name is "Nguyen" is the family name. "Anh Mai" is the "first name". But they should be called "Mai". And reversing the order "Mai Anh Thi Nguyen" is just wrong.
And Catholic families in Vietnam often have names "Nguyen Thi To but everybody calls me by my baptismal name of Mary". Or you have a "house name" (i.e. your real name) and an outside name (so that ghosts can't follow you home). Or you have your real name and an unofficial English name (for reasons both good & bad) that literally everyone at work calls you.
In the Philippines people have names Anna Katrina Gomez. But you don't call them Anna. You call them Katrina because that's how it often works in the Philippines.
The solution is simple:
One field is "what is your full name?"
One field is "what would you like to be called?"
You don't need to try to infer one from the other.
In India there are patronymic names with initials, mononyms (no “family name” or initials), names with just a given name (one or multiple words) and no “family name”, names where the “last name” is a place, etc.
If you truly want to cater to all kinds, just have one field for name and another for what they’d like to be addressed as.
[1]: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...
Personal opinion. As an Asian person, don’t overthink this. Just have fields for family name and given name to distinguish between the two. Sure, when there’s a text field saying hello “first name last name” it might be flipped but this shouldn’t be a deal breaker or offensive in any capacity. Worst case is you can have a toggle they can click but from a developer standpoint, that might be over engineering for someth…
Don't do this. In Vietnam names like Nguyen Thi Anh Mai are common. The family name is "Nguyen" is the family name. "Anh Mai" is the "first name". But they should be called "Mai". And reversing the order "Mai Anh Thi Nguyen" is just wrong. And Catholic families in Vietnam often have names "Nguyen Thi To but everybody calls me by my baptismal name of Mary". Or you have a "house name" (i.e. your real name) and an outsi…
Everyone I've known there has their mother's maiden name as a middle name, and father's last as last name. Then on marriage sliding the original last name to the middle name.
But one thing I did notice is that very few go by any given name, usually a play on it or a nickname instead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would not do this. For reasons of respect, you may need to address a person by either their first or last name (with a title). Just add a field for the desired form of address, or a nickname. > Addressing a person by their full name can come across as rude Stuffy, Maybe, but rude? Calling people by their first name is rude. Calling people by forms of address which don’t exist is rude.
> Stuffy, Maybe, but rude? Calling people by their first name is rude. Calling people by forms of address which don’t exist is rude. For me and my people, it's perceived as rude (it sounds infantilizing). Just because you don't perceive it that way doesn't mean it is not. > Calling people by their first name is rude Yes, it can be. That's why it's useful to have their last names disambiguated so a proper title can be…
Are you or your people Asian?
Though, even in Asia which names to call a person can differ wildly. I'm not sure how your personal ideas about rudeness are relevant here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for reminding me of this article! More people designing applications need to read it.
And read this, you can learn a lot about names from it: https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/sevis-help-hub/sevis-basics...
Personal opinion. As an Asian person, don’t overthink this. Just have fields for family name and given name to distinguish between the two. Sure, when there’s a text field saying hello “first name last name” it might be flipped but this shouldn’t be a deal breaker or offensive in any capacity. Worst case is you can have a toggle they can click but from a developer standpoint, that might be over engineering for someth…
Don't do this. In Vietnam names like Nguyen Thi Anh Mai are common. The family name is "Nguyen" is the family name. "Anh Mai" is the "first name". But they should be called "Mai". And reversing the order "Mai Anh Thi Nguyen" is just wrong. And Catholic families in Vietnam often have names "Nguyen Thi To but everybody calls me by my baptismal name of Mary". Or you have a "house name" (i.e. your real name) and an outsi…
Which name is my "first name" or "last name" also depends on what identity document I'm using. I immigrated to Asia and switched to the family-name-first convention, but my birth certificate and so on are the opposite. So it's conceivable that a system requiring two forms of identification has both name orders, and both are correct.
Names are awful.
Personal opinion. As an Asian person, don’t overthink this. Just have fields for family name and given name to distinguish between the two. Sure, when there’s a text field saying hello “first name last name” it might be flipped but this shouldn’t be a deal breaker or offensive in any capacity. Worst case is you can have a toggle they can click but from a developer standpoint, that might be over engineering for someth…
Don't do this. In Vietnam names like Nguyen Thi Anh Mai are common. The family name is "Nguyen" is the family name. "Anh Mai" is the "first name". But they should be called "Mai". And reversing the order "Mai Anh Thi Nguyen" is just wrong. And Catholic families in Vietnam often have names "Nguyen Thi To but everybody calls me by my baptismal name of Mary". Or you have a "house name" (i.e. your real name) and an outsi…
Naming is a tar pit and even Westerners might like to be called John when their name is Winstonshire. Let’s not even bother.
What is the downside? I’m not seeing it. I see people here recommending to implement logic to handle this fully and I’m not seeing why this would be preferable.
But the question sounds like there are already substantial asian users in divergent conventions without frictions. If that is what your app is trying to fix, I'm not completely sure how it will work out.
It's common to hear "How should I address you?" This is equivalent to the people here suggesting a "nickname" field (good idea).
There are people with only one name. Don't make them double it (Ananda Ananda).
There are people with several given names. But they may only want to be called by the first, or the first two, or the last.
There are people who wish to be called by their full name. They may find it jarring to be addressed by just one piece of their name.
Finally there are people who go by a name which is not part of their legal name at all. Short forms like Bob instead of Robert, but also freeform names for various reasons, perhaps the most sensitive being that some government official may have determined their legal name contrary to their own wishes. Imagine your mother named you Sue but someone decided that must be short for Susan and put that on your government documents.
Related: when people want to show which part of their name is the family name, they either make it all uppercase or underline it. You can see this on some CVs but it happens elsewhere too when a full name is going to be read by people who don't know the addressee.