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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?

#221

Post by hinata08 »

rob74 wrote: post #204
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…

In Hungary it's also last name first, both officially and informally - not sure if it's some Asian influence or something else...

France as well

I believe that it's mostly the English speaking world that is strict with having "first name" first and "last name" last.

It's not an Asian cultural feature to have family name first, but it's an English speaking thing to have it last.

OP isn't trying to use his software in Asia specifically. He's just adapting to non US market.

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

#222

Post by throaway230831 »

toyg wrote: post #158
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…

> In Bavaria where I live, the informal convention is also last name first It's probably a Roman thing. Julius Caesar was actually "Caesar, of the gens Julia", so last-name first. In Italy we also used to list last-name first, particularly in official and military communications. This has changed significantly in the last 40 years, particularly in everyday bureaucracy, but it's still used by police and other bodies.

Gaius (also written Caius) was his given name, Ivlivs (Julius) the family name, Caesar the cognomen.

In inscriptions (short): CAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR

In speaking he would (in English;)) rather formally introduce himself as "Gaius of the Iulii, called Caesar".

His mother called him Gaius, his peers called him Caesar once he got or choose?) this name.

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

#223

Post by throwaway2037 »

muzani wrote: post #67

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 (…

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 family name in all uppercase. Then, it can easily be identified as first or last. The easiest place to see it is in movie credits. When the screen is full of romanized Korean names, you see a mix of family name in all upper as first or last.

South Indian names can be incredibly long. Many people will shorten to use a single character from either first or last name.

Just have a single free text field. That should work for all cultures. Allow for 64 chars minimum (hello Spaniards!) and possibly 128 chars. Also, you might try a second field for "nick name". Lots of people with very long names use a shorter form in less formal settings.

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

#224

Post by sethammons »

qingcharles wrote: post #25
neoCrimeLabs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for reminding me of this article! More people designing applications need to read it.

And read this, you can learn a lot about names from it: https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/sevis-help-hub/sevis-basics...

> No hyphens, apostrophes, or commas; except in the Preferred Name field

But my passport and drivers license both show my middle names hyphenated :(

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

#225

Post by karatinversion »

MandieD wrote: post #76
jzwinck wrote: post #50

I lived in Asia for many years and worked with people from many places there. It's common to hear "How should I address you?" This is equivalent to the people here suggesting a "nickname" field (good idea). There are people with only one name. Don't make them double it (Ananda Ananda). There are people with several given names. But they may only want to be called by the first, or the first two, or the last. There are…

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…

You would likely get a similar reaction in Japan by addressing letters to rather than , using plain style rather than polite style, and omitting keigo.

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

#226

Post by throwaway2037 »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #149
yreg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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`.

Don't say hello, just state your business.

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.

It is an important part of intercultural communication to continuously adapt to different communication styles.

Why don't people write a tiny chatbot that applies to certain users? When the person says: "Hello." The bot can reply: "Hello!" It seems easy enough.

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

#228

Post by cafeinux »

puszczyk wrote: post #209
toyg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Bavaria where I live, the informal convention is also last name first It's probably a Roman thing. Julius Caesar was actually "Caesar, of the gens Julia", so last-name first. In Italy we also used to list last-name first, particularly in official and military communications. This has changed significantly in the last 40 years, particularly in everyday bureaucracy, but it's still used by police and other bodies.

In Poland informally it’s always . Formally, it depends most places are on the same as informal, but particularly military and some other bureaucracies will use . I always thought this is a holdout from the pre-computer days to make it easier to sort alphabetically (last names are a bit better distributed than the popular first names). In France they seem to prefer (yes, all caps) even for less formal things.

Not sure how it is done in other countries, but it's very likely that the custom of using the last name in all caps exists elsewhere. AFAIK, it comes from the fact that some last names are also common first names, so it's easier to distinguish between the two like this, as the order isn't really that important. For example, if I see a DIDIER Bernard or a Bernard DIDIER, I know I need to call him M. Didier in a formal context or just Bernard in an informal one.

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

#229

Post by shellfishgene »

sarabande wrote: post #136
jval43 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's your personal preference to be addressed with _Sie_, but languages change and German is seeing shift to the use of _Du_ even for transactional business [1]. Target audience, region, familiarity etc. will all affect which word is used. Claiming the use of _Du_ in customer relationships as "wholly inappropriate" again is an expression of personal preference, not fact. [1] https://www.abendblatt.de/wirtschaft/artic…

It got a lot more common during Covid, the social distancing rules in Supermarkets etc. were often written with the informal "Du", I guess to foster a sense of community and "we're all in this together".

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

#230

Post by lawgimenez »

muzani wrote: post #67

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 (…

Middle names are also equally important in the Philippines. The website that the OP included is lacking.

Either in the format:

- given-name middle-name surname

- surname, given-name (note there is no comma here) middle-name or middle initial

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