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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

#231

Post by CrowFly »

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…

And some languages have no upper and lower case, like my native language (Hebrew).

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

#232

Post by Freak_NL »

donpark wrote: post #226
sohkamyung wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not for Malaysian born Chinese. We usually have three names. For example, mine is SOH Kam Yung: SOH - family name Kam - 'generational' name (same as for my brothers) Yung - my given name For simplicity, I usually add a hyphen (Kam-Yung) in my name to make it easier for people to refer to me in non-formal settings, i.e. I should be called "Kam Yung" or "Mr. Soh". Calling me "Kam" (it has happened) is nonsensical…

Same for Koreans. Capitalizing the first character of the 'generational' name and lowercase for given name could work. But I think emphasizing the given name offers better UX so given name should be all caps and family name should be all lowercase like this: YUNG Kam soh or soh Kam YUNG.

> But I think emphasizing the given name offers better UX […]

How? You are introducing a custom capitalization convention nobody uses. People expect the UPPERCASED name, if present, to be the surname (or whatever you can sensible put after Mr/Ms). Going against strong conventions is not a good user experience.

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

#233

Post by Double_a_92 »

sohkamyung wrote: post #209
midhir wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

It's not for Malaysian born Chinese. We usually have three names. For example, mine is SOH Kam Yung: SOH - family name Kam - 'generational' name (same as for my brothers) Yung - my given name For simplicity, I usually add a hyphen (Kam-Yung) in my name to make it easier for people to refer to me in non-formal settings, i.e. I should be called "Kam Yung" or "Mr. Soh". Calling me "Kam" (it has happened) is nonsensical…

> Calling me "Kam" (it has happened) is nonsensical from my point of view.

Would just Yung be ok?

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

#234

Post by Double_a_92 »

ahartmetz wrote: post #229
hiroshi3110 wrote: post #223

As a Japanese, first we MUST stop pronounce Chinese names, both place and person, in Japanese on-yomi rule. e.g. Beijing(北京) is called "Pekin". Xi Jinping (習近平) is Shu Kinpei. It always confuse me when first heard those name in English.

So that might be why Beijing is called Peking in German... Although the (generally closer to original pronunciation) English romanizations of some Chinese names are becoming more common.

It's called ~"Peking" in most European languages.

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

#235

Post by barry-cotter »

ip26 wrote: post #149
mises wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're pretty close with English, or it's at least the best candidate. Most of the knowledge recently produced (since WWII) is in it, and the world's largest economy uses it. It's also taken a little something from every one. With that said, I think national pride will prevent such a thing happening. As an American, I wouldn't want to learn someone else's language as a "common tongue", though have no objection…

It will depend on how long the US remains the reigning power. If China bowls the US over, English can be undone fairly quickly. Mandarin is spoken by 20% of the world population.

Mandarin is spoken overwhelmingly by residents of China. English is an official language of education and government in at least one country on every continent. In South Asia it’s common for the upper middle classes and up to speak English better than what’s theoretically their native language. If the US was magically replaced by parallel universe with no people US English dominance would last at least a century. Spoken Latin and French both survived as lingua franca long past the apex of their sponsoring powers.

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

#236

Post by barry-cotter »

hiroshi3110 wrote: post #223

As a Japanese, first we MUST stop pronounce Chinese names, both place and person, in Japanese on-yomi rule. e.g. Beijing(北京) is called "Pekin". Xi Jinping (習近平) is Shu Kinpei. It always confuse me when first heard those name in English.

Why? You’re speaking Japanese, not Chinese, and all Chinese characters have onyomi. It’s like saying English speakers should call Germany Deutschland.

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

#238

Post by sohkamyung »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #233
sohkamyung wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not for Malaysian born Chinese. We usually have three names. For example, mine is SOH Kam Yung: SOH - family name Kam - 'generational' name (same as for my brothers) Yung - my given name For simplicity, I usually add a hyphen (Kam-Yung) in my name to make it easier for people to refer to me in non-formal settings, i.e. I should be called "Kam Yung" or "Mr. Soh". Calling me "Kam" (it has happened) is nonsensical…

> Calling me "Kam" (it has happened) is nonsensical from my point of view. Would just Yung be ok?

> Would just Yung be ok?

For me, that's only for family members and very close friends. :-)

It's like a personal nickname that you feel comfortable with if only a close circle of people use.

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

#239

Post by apexalpha »

hiroshi3110 wrote: post #223

As a Japanese, first we MUST stop pronounce Chinese names, both place and person, in Japanese on-yomi rule. e.g. Beijing(北京) is called "Pekin". Xi Jinping (習近平) is Shu Kinpei. It always confuse me when first heard those name in English.

Dutch here, due to historical trade relations we also still use Peking!

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

#240

Post by hoseja »

throwaway287391 wrote: post #217
SilasX wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Shouldn't you instead make your app without these assumptions so that you don't have to?
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