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Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#171

Post by favorited »

imgabe wrote: post #165
favorited wrote: post #154

I was working on a personal project recently which involved importing lots of Japanese names into a database for my app. I had originally made a "person" table with columns for "given_name" and "family_name" – but ended up going with a combined "name" column because I couldn't find a reliable way to determine if data from different sources was using the given-first or family-first convention (and I was automatically…

Whenever I'm making an app I do "full name" and "nickname" or "address_as" fields. It solves a lot of problems.

That's pretty much where I landed too. When I make the query to populate my models, I just go `coalesce(preferred_name, full_name) as name`.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#172

Post by _ph_ »

As a person, who tries to be polite and correct in conversations, especially also written ones, I am completely lost. For me it is usually impossible to find out in which order a name was written as both orders are being used. I would desperately love to have a clear typographical hint, like all caps, with smallcaps for the non leading letters, for which the family name is.

Pro tip for email communications: please sign any mail you send off. This gives the recipient a clear idea, how he could address you, by just copying from your signature.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#173

Post by dsr_ »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #153
dsr_ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hello, I'm Cheng Xu. Please call me Cheng." or "Hello, I'm Xu Cheng. Please call me Cheng." solves the problem either way.

Interestingly, in Chinese no-one would call him just 'Cheng'.

And in Chinese nobody would be confused about whether his family name was Xu or Cheng.

Also reasonable:

"I am Doctor Xu."

"I'm Xu Cheng. I prefer my students to call me Doctor Xu."

"Hi, everybody calls me Frazz. Here's my card if you need to reach me."

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#174

Post by jasonjei »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #167
jasonjei wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

「劉」is being used as part of a first name in this case.

Yes, but I don't see what the ambiguity is supposed to be. How would you interpret the name such that the 劉 wasn't part of the given name?

On the Uber app, they only provide the given name and not the full surname. I mistakenly thought my driver was surnamed LIU, when his actual surname is JIANG. Just pointing an anecdote when I was in Taiwan

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#175

Post by paulific »

I deal with the reverse of this problem all the time. Living in Japan, my bank cards (and other ID) all have my name in the Japanese order, with my surname first followed by my first name and my middle name last. Without fail, the staff at the counter will address me by my middle name, on the assumption that foreigners' names have the family name last, so that must be the right name to use.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#177

Post by ink_13 »

favorited wrote: post #154

I was working on a personal project recently which involved importing lots of Japanese names into a database for my app. I had originally made a "person" table with columns for "given_name" and "family_name" – but ended up going with a combined "name" column because I couldn't find a reliable way to determine if data from different sources was using the given-first or family-first convention (and I was automatically…

Ah, you have discovered one of the Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names[0].

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

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#178

Post by paulific »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #167
jasonjei wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

「劉」is being used as part of a first name in this case.

Yes, but I don't see what the ambiguity is supposed to be. How would you interpret the name such that the 劉 wasn't part of the given name?

If you only hear it spoken, or you don't understand the naming convention and start making guesses about what you think is going on. People in countries where middle names are normal also tend to make the assume that one of the syllables is a middle name.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#179

Post by xxpor »

gibolt wrote: post #142
xxpor wrote: post #2

English should adopt the French convention of capitalizing the family (last) name. For example, this would make it ABE Shinzo, which would remove ambiguity. When encountering East (thanks for the reminder) Asian (or Hungarian, for that matter) names in emails for example, I'm usually worried about if their "last" name in the directory is their given name and what they should be addressed by or their actual last name.

Any suggestions for surnames with only one letter? They exist, and would still be ambiguous :)

Would it be though? If all caps becomes standard, and the given name isn't in caps, it would mean the single letter family name is the single letter one.

Re: Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names

#180

Post by SilasX »

xxpor wrote: post #2

English should adopt the French convention of capitalizing the family (last) name. For example, this would make it ABE Shinzo, which would remove ambiguity. When encountering East (thanks for the reminder) Asian (or Hungarian, for that matter) names in emails for example, I'm usually worried about if their "last" name in the directory is their given name and what they should be addressed by or their actual last name.

You know I have to do it...

Falsehoods programmers believe about names:

- Everyone has exactly one well-defined "family name". (In Latin America people have more than one, and some cultrues may go by a single name that isn't a family indicator.)

- In every formal context, the "family name" is how you should address someone. (You do not address the queen of England as "Mrs. Windsor", and Saddam Hussein preferred to be known as "Saddam", which is not a family name.)

(With that said, if it's understood that those assumptions hold, this is a great convention and I endorse it ... at least for the first mention in an article.)

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