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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

#211

Post by kh_hk »

gmueckl wrote: post #181
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.

Fun fact: some German names (e.g. Strauß) change spelling when capitalized. The letter "ß" is a ligature that only exists as a lower case letter and has to be written as "SS" when capitalized. Names are fun. I recently had dealings with a company that assumed in its employee roster that the last word entered in the name field was your last name (i.e. anything beyond the last space). One of my coworkers was from Spain…

> One of my coworkers was from Spain and had a last name consisting of two words separated by a space.

It's two last names, father and mother first last names. I guess the same definition works, but it's worth noting that any last name might contain a space.

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

#212

Post by ardy42 »

midhir wrote: post #70
HuShifang wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. This is, actually, a regular (if not standard) practice in many domains of academic bibliography for Chinese authors (which is useful, as some individuals with Chinese personal and family names working in Anglophone contexts do follow the English convention of putting personal names first -- meaning that you often can't tell which is the personal and which is the family name in pinyin, e.g. "Li Jia") Fun fact:…

That's interesting, I thought the given name in Chinese was almost always two characters. Is this not the case? 我是中文学生 :) Funnily the first thing you learn in Chinese is how to say who you are. But there's very little help with actually picking a Chinese name!

> That's interesting, I thought the given name in Chinese was almost always two characters. Is this not the case?

It depends, I think. I don't know about all of China, but in some places they alternate the length of the given name by generation (e.g. if you have a two-character given name, you give your children a one-character name, and vice versa).

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

#213

Post by roberto »

kh_hk wrote: post #211
gmueckl wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: some German names (e.g. Strauß) change spelling when capitalized. The letter "ß" is a ligature that only exists as a lower case letter and has to be written as "SS" when capitalized. Names are fun. I recently had dealings with a company that assumed in its employee roster that the last word entered in the name field was your last name (i.e. anything beyond the last space). One of my coworkers was from Spain…

> One of my coworkers was from Spain and had a last name consisting of two words separated by a space. It's two last names, father and mother first last names. I guess the same definition works, but it's worth noting that any last name might contain a space.

Not necessarily. My last name is Ferreira De Almeida. "Ferreira" comes from my mother, and "De Almeida", with space, comes from my father.

I started spelling it "Dealmeida" to avoid confusion.

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

#214

Post by dis-sys »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #124
ksec wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I thought the given name in Chinese was almost always two characters. Is this not the case? Mostly in Old, Traditional or Southern part of China.

When was the last time mainland China had a leader with a one character given name? But ya, it is a matter of preference.

> When was the last time mainland China had a leader with a one character given name?

The person commonly known as Sun Yat-sen in the west. His given name is 文, he used it to sign all official documents.

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

#215

Post by yellowapple »

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.

Sticking to a consistent ordering of given and (middle and) (paternal and) (maternal and) family names would also remove ambiguity.

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

#216

Post by abdullahkhalids »

tricolon wrote: post #205
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen the following variations in Pakistan. Given name is what people prefer to be called informally. * marks if people strongly prefer to be referred to by this name in a formal setting. Prefixes are usually religious in nature (Muhammad/Syed) and then you are never supposed to use them except when reading out the full name. FamilyName GivenName* GivenName FamilyName GivenName* Father'sGivenName GivenName Fath…

> My name is of the third type and as a scientist it annoys me immensely that my work is referred to by my Father'sGivenName in western culture By what would you prefer your work be referred to, assuming a formal setting?

As Dr. GivenName in formal settings. As or GivenName et al. in references. As just GivenName in informal settings.

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

#217

Post by throwaway287391 »

SilasX wrote: post #180
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…

> 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.)

Don't these "falsehoods" just become ridiculous at some point? Like, am I really supposed to carve out special cases in my shitty app's business logic for the Queen and Saddam Hussein?

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

#218

Post by ardy42 »

falsedan wrote: post #24
knolax wrote: post #19

Why can't we just write names as "Smith, John" when it's in the Asian order and "John Smith" or "John·Smith" if its in the Western order? It would remove all the ambiguity using already existing conventions.

It disregards the cultural history of names to suit what’s easiest for Western Europeans to understand.

> It disregards the cultural history of names to suit what’s easiest for Western Europeans to understand.

Personally, I wish that was done more often in English. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense to wantonly import unmodified foreign orthography from on language into another. English is bad enough as it is. Word order and spelling (even for names) should be adapted to the rules of the language being spoken.

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

#219

Post by abdullahkhalids »

odux wrote: post #207
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen the following variations in Pakistan. Given name is what people prefer to be called informally. * marks if people strongly prefer to be referred to by this name in a formal setting. Prefixes are usually religious in nature (Muhammad/Syed) and then you are never supposed to use them except when reading out the full name. FamilyName GivenName* GivenName FamilyName GivenName* Father'sGivenName GivenName Fath…

I did not know that this was common in Pakistan. I am from south India and my name (and almost all names in this part of the country) are of the form. . This gets less common as one moves towards the north of the country, where is more common. So I had assumed the Pakistan would be same given its proximity to and shared culture with North India. (actually the name is where the initial is the first letter of the fathe…

My family immigrated from North India (UP) at partition and we use the convention. Most of these other mentioned conventions are from Pakistan's Punjab, but also from other areas.

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

#220

Post by jac_no_k »

tgp wrote: post #191
falsedan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It disregards the cultural history of names to suit what’s easiest for Western Europeans to understand.

When a Western newspaper writes in the English language for a Western audience, isn't the most important thing to make articles clear and easy to understand? I understand that it's also important to respect the culture and language and the background of the person that you write about, but I guess unless you really want to have the Japanese characters in your English newspaper, it's a trade-off. I live in Japan, my c…

Other "problems" for Japan foreign residents: * I'm of Japanese ethnicity but not Japanese, so must use katakana. Confuses everyone. * My wife, also not Japanese, kept her maiden name; breaking all kinds assumptions on forms. * Recently my wife has taken on Japanese citizenship and now uses the kanji form of my katakana last name. More confusion from various institutions. * My kids did not take on the Japanese citizenship and pretty much stands on school rosters. * And what about the katakana romanization of the names!? My first name has two different variations...

I could go on... but for name ordering problems, my bank credit card allows choices on how the name is to be used on the card. I naively picked FirstName MiddleInitial LastName for the credit card. This does not match any form of Japanese identification. So when I'm trying to buy say a SIM card, inevitably an exception is thrown and some crazy Japanese style escalation ensues.

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