121–130 of 527 posts
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Slack does this and I don't like it. I have Hungarian colleagues and some (but not all!) of them have entered the family name first. I always feel awkward responding to them, because I don't know if I'm typing `Hello $FIRSTNAME` or `Hello $LASTNAME`.
You can do `Hello @TheirSlackHandle`.
Related: as a Swede, the first times I had to fill out a honorific, it felt very weird. And many times they are required. We don't use honorifics in Sweden. The only difference between formal and informal address, is pretty much whether you use a nickname or not. The idea that there is a single category of "western name" is wonky. Another is that my spoken/given name is after my "middle" name. Especially American for…
But Swedish naming traditions are great evidence that there's no such clean divide between "western" and "eastern" naming schemes: There have actually been dialects/areas where they put the genitive form if the family/farm name first, e.g "Dals Olof" even in Swedish, and in Finnish-speaking areas this was very common.
Use a single text field for the full name.
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). Addressing a person by their full name can come across as rude (I personally find it rude too, e.g. "Hey John R. Brown, this is your order"), so it's useful to split up "given name" and "family name" into 2 fields so that you don't have to depend on name ordering which varies by culture. If…
I'm just French (where we often use "FAMILY Given" in a formal setting, but "Given Family" is common otherwise) and I still need a moment to think every time I see "first name" "last name" fields instead of "family name" "given name", after decades of being online.
My parents just fill these forms in random order, basically.
The other problem is:
> For reasons of respect, you may need to address a person by either their first or last name (with a title).
This often doesn't translate well between cultures. American websites will often use the given name in any setting and this is weird. If they want to be friendly-informal they should address me with "Hello Given Family, this is your order".
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I have an elderly German aunt by marriage who considers it an affront that Vodafone sends her chirpy business letters starting "Hallo >!" and continuing in the familiar second person instead of the more (to her) respectful "Sehr geehrte Frau Dr. >," and formal "Sie" (grammatically third person plural, but also the formal second person). First names and familiar second person grammar are very much reserved for family…
It is an affront though, a butchering of the language and just generally disrespectful. The distinction is an integral part of the German language and it's wholly inappropriate for a telco provider to address someone like this. Same goes with names: missing accents, umlauts, special characters, wrong ordering, wrong titles/gender etc. is aggravating. And customers do complain. German companies often spend a non-trivi…
My ideal message from my telco would be this one line:
"Hi Leo, your monthly bill for is available. Get it here: "
Definitely read https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... if you haven't yet. Then think about what are the requirements your system needs when it comes to names. Does the app need to know what a user's name is at all or is a username enough? Does it need to distinguish the family part of their name for anything? A thing I think is the most general is to just have a Full Name field (min length 1…
Very interesting however >People have exactly one canonical full name. What is on your passport then?
Also, a lot of people in the world don't have passports.
You have two fields: full name and the name you want to be addressed by (e.g. in an email). This should cover the requirements of 99% of apps. You can add another field if really needed.
Of course if you don't need the legal name it's best not to ask for it.
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…
My name is Ritobrata Ghosh (Given Family). But my friends, teachers, colleagues always called me Rito. I have a different short name that is used by immediate family and close relatives.
Rito is also easier for western people's tongues. So, that is what I almost always use. I use my full name only in legal and financial documents. In every other place, I am just Rito. I like to be addressed as "Rito" and appear as "Rito Ghosh" in badges, documentation, slack, any non-legal/non-financial documents.
So, the best way to go, in my opinion, is having two fields- one for full name, another for preferred name. Do not _assume_ anything.
This is also consistent with western names, like: William Henry Gates III as Bill Gates.
There is also another field in many places where there are badges and such. "This field will appear as is in your badge" is wise in such cases.
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In most cases you don't even need the users real name. If I sign up for an account, but the invoice is going to the billing department of my company, why do you care what my real name is?
If the name on a bill to my company does not match the name of the employee who ordered the product, the bill will certainly not be paid.
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 (…
So:
* honorific surname: Sharifah * given name: Azizah * father's honorific surname: Syed * father's given name: Ahmad Tarmizi * address me as: Zaphod Beeblebrox the 4th