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 (…
Oh, and make sure you can handle long names. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Blaine_Wolfeschlegelste... .
Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
421–430 of 527 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least in Germany, titles are still rather important. I agree that it's silly but if you have a PhD you're very likely to put "Dr." on your doorbell name plate.
not to mention that often the title is Prof. Dr.
We had a go-live delayed because the sponsoring executive needed to demo the app to a board member, and would not do it until the UI showed the full greeting of “Prof. Dr. xxxx”. We had to shoehorn that into the data model at the last minute.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#423Just 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 (…
And don't forget people with just a single name. Filling in computer forms that require two names is the bane of my existence.
How do you fly?
I had a friend with a single letter first name and the booking forms would never accept it, so he would add another couple of letters, but then at the airport he would be fucked because his ticket never matched his ID.
And how did you come by such a name?
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
This list would have been so much better with examples or a short explanation how or why the assumptions break in case it is not obvious. The author offers examples on demand [1] but while I would be interested to know them, it seems not important enough to bother the author. Maybe the author sees this comment and has some time to spare, then it could benefit everyone and not just one person asking. [1] If you need e…
I live in Japan (as does Kalzameus), my name will regularly cause problems in computer systems. In fact, quite often I'm not using my name but what I am called in Japanese, and even then it will often fail. Number 1 problem - not enough characters, because most Japanese people only use a few characters for their entire name, don't have middle names, and don't have spaces in their names. And that's just for starters.…
Do you have to enter your name in Romaji or Katakana in Japanese sites?
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#425Just 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 (…
This is what I usually do if I need the name at all, but sometimes you need to interface with systems that need that data split. A simple, unimportant one: how do you politely address the person? In Germany, you'd start a letter with "Sehr geehrte Frau Dr. Musterfrau", which implies knowing the last name, gender and title of the person. You can drop the title, but dropping the gender makes the whole thing impersonal.…
> you'd start a letter with "Sehr geehrte Frau Dr. Musterfrau", which implies knowing the last name, gender and title of the person.
No it doesn't. Just ask how they want to be addressed. You can't encode all the possible variants, not everyone in Germany will want to be addressed in that way even if they are both a woman and a doctor.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
I respectfully disagree with their advice to use “Family name” and “Given name”, over “First name” and “Last name”. Everybody has a First name and Last name (unless they are mononymic), even if this doesn’t correspond semantically to what the writer of the form anticipated. Many people don’t have a Family name and this creates user confusion when filling out forms.
The point is that First Name and Last Name do not correspond to Family Name and Given Name, which is actually what is desired (you can start an email to me as "Hello ", and be reasonably sure of avoiding insult. You can't do that with "Hello ", you will definitely insult some people). However, I don't do this. If I want someone's name so I can talk to them, I just ask them "what do you want us to call you?" with a si…
In German, you have to ask the customer whether they want to be addressed in the formal way “Sehr geehrter Herr Schmidt” (esteemed Mr. Schmidt might be an approximate translation, of course this sounds totally off in English) or the informal way “Hallo Paul”, or maybe they prefer “Lieber Paul” (dear Paul) or even “Lieber Herr Schmidt”! Note that the formal and informal ways use different parts of the name. So if the website asks me for my name, then I have to rub my crystal ball to figure out which style the company intends to use.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least in Germany, titles are still rather important. I agree that it's silly but if you have a PhD you're very likely to put "Dr." on your doorbell name plate.
Can confirm. In Germany, recipients of a US visa often complain that their title isn't used on the visa, only their name. Especially PhD visa applicants.
I think that's just out of the necessity of not having to explain who exactly "her Dr Rer Nat" is.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> why do you care what my real name is Because the billing department verifies bills before paying them, and needs to know who to ask about the bill?
That's an internal matter. The supplier needs to include the customer's order number anyway or no one in the company will know how to deal with the invoice. That number will be linked to the person who raised the order.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
In France married women, if they let their guard down, will be given their husband's last name as "nom d'usage" upon almost any sign-up paperwork, without being asked, at least in my experience. Nom d'usage technically has no legal value, it's just a last name you might want to be addressed as, normally that of your husband but it can be a pen name and whatever. It's optional, and technically only at the request of t…
Yes, it's really bad. We actually couldn't open a joint bank account with both names separated. They'd accept the papers signed in the official names, but the names on the cards and other communication needed to be unified for their system to accept it. They'd accept to reemit card with the correct names only as an exception by abusing the card renewal system apparently
I assume you're talking about Société Générale? I've experienced that, and what's worse it's that's it's broken on purpose. A joint bank account doesn't require the people to be married, let alone to share names. But if they tick the married box, whoops, now it's suddenly mandatory.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
You also get this with Lord and I'd assume Baron, count, Duke, viscount or their feminine equivalents. I do wonder what would happen if I used a tile that was not used in the UK.
Move to Britain, change your given name to Graf (that's German for the title of count/earl), and get a passport. I'm curious to see what the result would be, myself.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/titles-included-i...
If you set your title to "Graf" in the passport form:
> By Royal Warrant of 27 April 1932, the use in England and Wales of foreign titles of nobility was discontinued.
> You must include the observation: THE HOLDER IS ALSO KNOWN AS (foreign title).
If you instead set your given name to "Graf", these instructions would not apply, as you are not claiming it's your title. Nor would it be evident to the passport office or any other English speaker that your given name implied a title, so provided your supporting documents corroborate that "Graf" is your given name, they'd issue a passport in that name.
However, if you used not "Graf", but a title recognised in the English language:
> A person may call themselves any name they want, as long as it is not for fraudulent purposes
> You may receive an application supported by documents (for example, a birth certificate or a change of name deed) that shows a customer is using a name that includes a description of a title (for example, Lord, Princess, Earl or Baron as a forename).
> You must include the observation: THE REFERENCE TO (description of title) IS TO THE HOLDER’S NAME AND NOT TO THE HOLDER’S TITLE.