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Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

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Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#501

Post by brigandish »

qingcharles wrote: post #424
brigandish wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It depends but it's usually going to be katakana. Sometimes it would specify what's written on your passport, or residence card. I've even heard talk of using half-width characters, which, luckily, I've not had the misfortune to use yet.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#502

Post by brigandish »

Toutouxc wrote: post #165
brigandish wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't refer to yourself in private by your own name?

Do you? I only say my own name when I’m introducing myself to someone.

On my own, I use my own name and pronouns. Not ever said or thought something like "Toutouxc, what are you doing?"

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#503

Post by Akronymus »

usrusr wrote: post #276
weinzierl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same." This is the way to go. "The family/given name format doesn't make much sense here." It doesn't make much sense in many places all over the world. In Germany technically speaking our given names are a set and we can have many of them. While it is practically necessary to write them out in a certain order in our documents, from a legal s…

Germany used to be extremely restrictive about the set of character sequences that were allowed as given names. Some of that is probably still in place. When everybody was called Fritz or Hans or Gundula plus some word describing an ancestor's profession (it's all following the pattern of Smith and Miller), the order didn't really matter and that freedom was liberally abused: contexts that use the formal as identifie…

> a childhood memory of my mother (northern Germany) is that as a child she was sometimes referred to as given name + name of the family farm, I suspect not in that order.

I disambiguate my grandparents via the name of the farmhouse they live in, rather than the last names. I am from austria. But I dunno how common that is.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#504

Post by Akronymus »

zamalek wrote: post #284
weinzierl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same." This is the way to go. "The family/given name format doesn't make much sense here." It doesn't make much sense in many places all over the world. In Germany technically speaking our given names are a set and we can have many of them. While it is practically necessary to write them out in a certain order in our documents, from a legal s…

> "Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same." > This is the way to go. Agreed. Does anyone know of any reason to care about first/last, apart from it being part of My First SQL Database and sating our inner desire to create pointless taxonomies?

Having to interact with other systems that expect first and last names to exist.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#505

Post by muzani »

mcv wrote: post #400
throwaway2037 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Indonesian Javanese people only have a single name. It is more rare these days, but certainly not zero, or only old people who don't use computer. I've met people in their 20s with a single name. Also, in (South) Korea, depending upon the person's preference, they may choose to do family name first or last. It's crazy. I don't know why. (Can someone explain it to me?) As a result, most will write their romanized…

I used to know an American guy in Amsterdam who only had a single name. His explanation was always that his parents were a bit weird. It was a short 4-letter name too. He might well be in the running for the shortest name ever.

Some weird names I've seen in the real world are "Boy" and "Baby"

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#506

Post by mcv »

muzani wrote: post #505
mcv wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to know an American guy in Amsterdam who only had a single name. His explanation was always that his parents were a bit weird. It was a short 4-letter name too. He might well be in the running for the shortest name ever.

Some weird names I've seen in the real world are "Boy" and "Baby"

I've got a coworker called Boy. I also remember something on TV with a recurring character called Boy. This is in Netherland, so maybe the fact that it's a foreign word makes it a bit more acceptable?

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#507

Post by weinzierl »

mhink wrote: post #391
weinzierl wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a child in Bavaria I was often called by house name + given name, in that order, especially by the elderly. The house name is different from the family name which appears in official documents like the birth certificate. Another difference between northern and southern Germany is the Münchner-Du and the Hamburger-Sie. In standard German we use the formal pronoun Sie with the last name in formal situations…

> Marcus, can thee get the car, please. Two notes: First, you'd use "thou" here, as it's the nominative case, and the correct conjugation would be "canst". Secondly, "thee" and "thou" were very much the form used to speak to a close friend or social inferior in early modern English. "You" functioned more like French "vous" or German "Sie"- as either a plural formation or a formal address of a social superior. With th…

Thank you, I wondered when I wrote it, if its that simple and if I should try to given an English equivalent at all, but did't have time to research it. Your comment saved me from that.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#508

Post by weinzierl »

usrusr wrote: post #375
weinzierl wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a child in Bavaria I was often called by house name + given name, in that order, especially by the elderly. The house name is different from the family name which appears in official documents like the birth certificate. Another difference between northern and southern Germany is the Münchner-Du and the Hamburger-Sie. In standard German we use the formal pronoun Sie with the last name in formal situations…

Aren't those name/pronoun mismatches in both cases a clear expression of status gradient? "I consider you close but I certainly don't consider you a peer". I suppose that neither of those drivers would reply in similar form. (though far less unlikely in the munich variant I think). An exception would be a recurring pattern of ironically using the family name like a nickname in youth language. Perhaps male only youth…

I'm from Bavaria, so can only really speak about the Munich version with some confidence, and I think it is usually used symmetrically. The German Wikipedia entry about the Hamburger-Sie specifically discusses the status gradient, so you definitely have a point there. Maybe it is even true for the Munich version and I just never heard it used like that.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#509

Post by throwaway2037 »

vultour wrote: post #266
throwaway2037 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I here this trope so much. It is tiring and closed-minded. Are you Western culture and male? Probably. I have seen whole blog posts dedicated to this matter. Really? This matter is so stressful that people need to write 100s of words about it? Sheesh. Are you aware that it is polite to start a convo with people from South Asia with a small greeting? They wait for you to ack. If you don't ack, they will not continue.…

Who decides which side should do the adapting?

My general rule: If you are from an externally diverse cultural then you need to adapt to non-diverse cultures (Japan Korea etc) or internal-only diverse cultures (South Asia, Southeast Asia). If you cannot adapt to other cultures, then what is the point of working in a multicultural setting?

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#510

Post by throwaway2037 »

muzani wrote: post #363
throwaway2037 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I here this trope so much. It is tiring and closed-minded. Are you Western culture and male? Probably. I have seen whole blog posts dedicated to this matter. Really? This matter is so stressful that people need to write 100s of words about it? Sheesh. Are you aware that it is polite to start a convo with people from South Asia with a small greeting? They wait for you to ack. If you don't ack, they will not continue.…

Also some cultures put the pressure of communication on the listener. Say, you're in the same town as a friend and want to meet them. The American approach might be to ask, "Hey, I'm in town. Want to hang out?" The sender has done their job of delivering a clear message. But some cultures would just say, "Hey, I'm in town." That removes the pressure from the other person to say no, I don't want to see you. You can al…

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