
Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names - sanqui
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/05/21/national/politics-diplomacy/foreign-minister-taro-kono-ask-media-switch-order-japanese-names/
======
xxpor
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.

~~~
gmueckl
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 had a last name consisting of two words separated by a space. She was the
very definition of a failure case for that system.

~~~
kh_hk
> 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.

~~~
roberto
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.

------
ymkjp
My wife is a Mongolian Chinese from Xinjiang, and she doesn't have a last name
like other Mongolians follow single name convention. That brings lots of mess
to our life in Japan.

Firstly I should note that her Chinese passport records her first name as the
last name, which I think is a widely adopted way; however, whenever I purchase
a boarding pass for her, I need to inquire the company how to fill a required
first name field in the form. Most commonly, they let me use a placeholder
"MS" in the first name field. Still, even following their instructions, we
face minor trouble at ticket counter sometimes. That is fine because the
airline offers us compensation such as free first-class seat conversion. So
boarding pass is a frequency-wise problem for us.

In severity-wise, the social security system in Japan frightened me. Oh dear.
Very soon after I started my career, their representative called me that they
would input whitespace (I guess it's in multibyte) as her last name, and told
me that they could not guarantee it won't cause any trouble. Imagine you work
for 30-40 years and the government's mother-AI sentences that you are not
eligible for the national pension as your residential profile doesn't match
with the whitespace! Not quite surreal to think about it if the AI learned the
less diverse culture in Japan. But I digress. Currently, my wife and I
consider registering the legal FBN to use my family name to prevent upcoming
troubles.

Software developers, please have a moment to think of the NULL name when your
product owner tries to set the first name as required.

~~~
kyawzazaw
Burmese here, we don't have family names as well and run into this similar
problem in all other countries.

------
hyperrail
There is an impressive amount of variation regarding personal name formats
even within Asia.

In my culture (Thai), I put my given name first and then my family name
(inherited from my father), like in most of the west, but actually my name of
formal address is my _first_ , given name, and my family name is hardly ever
used except as a differentiator. [1]

In Vietnamese culture, I believe the given name is also the name of formal
address, yet the family name comes first as in China and Japan. Hence Nguyen
Anh would be called "Anh".

[1] [http://blog.jclark.com/2007/12/thai-personal-
names.html](http://blog.jclark.com/2007/12/thai-personal-names.html)

~~~
abdullahkhalids
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*

<optional prefix> GivenName FamilyName

GivenName* Father'sGivenName

GivenName Father'sGivenName FamilyName

Father'sGivenName GivenName FamilyName

Prefix GivenName*

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 when no one has
ever called me that in real life in my culture.

~~~
tricolon
> 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?

~~~
odux
Not OP. But similar situation. My name is of the form <given nane> <father's
given name> (a bit more complicated than that, see my other comment). So if my
father's given name is Jack, my name may be Michael Jack. In my native setting
I am always referred to as Mr Michael. Very rarely Mr Michael Jack. Never Mr
Jack, because that is how my father would be referred to as. So in a western
setting I am almost always called Mr Jack and in my mind it is my dad, not me.

------
lifeisstillgood
I think this is the start of the hockey stick graph in the _unicode-ification_
of the world

We are becoming a closer more integrated world and we will find it waaaaay
easier to have common shared conventions and regulations - but that does not
mean we all choose an existing one, (ie cultural hegemony) we just migrate to
a new one, more complex perhaps but one that fits (more or less) everybody.

It's fascinating (been fighting unicode legacy issues today so it's top of
mind)

~~~
johnchristopher
Factoid: reminds me of a strip in a recent superman comics, I quote a villain
getting his message broadcasted on every devices of the planet: "You really
should settle on a common language or you'll never achieve anything
significant as a specie".

~~~
saalweachter
Mi pensis, ke ni havas unu.

~~~
johnchristopher
On en a plusieurs. Et c'est l'opinion d'un vilain qui est ici citée.

(I suggest we get back to english for the sake of the rest of the conversation
since this exchange between us served its purpose of being insightful with a
bit fun thrown in)

~~~
rzzzt
This results in the "15 competing standards" situation of the present where
none of them is actually _the_ common language.

------
snthd
I'd love to see names always included once in their native script.

>Foreign Minister 河野 太郎 (Kōno Tarō) said Tuesday he plans to ask overseas
media outlets to write Japanese names with the family name first, as is
customary in the country.

Implicitly that would be a declaration that the English isn't authoritative.

~~~
ip26
That kinda makes them seem all the more alien, inserted in the middle of an
English sentence like that. You could maybe flip it with the native script in
parens.

------
wccrawford
Did this article put his given name first, despite being about him asking that
the media put the family name first? I wonder if he finds that as frustrating
as I do.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
It looks like it. From his wikipedia article
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar%C5%8D_K%C5%8Dno](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar%C5%8D_K%C5%8Dno)

it looks like his father's name is Yōhei Kōno which which suggests that Kono
is his family name.

~~~
Hamuko
Taro is also a very common Japanese male name. Think of "John".

------
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.

------
FabHK
FWIW, many Hong Kong people have both a Chinese name and a Western one, and
then it works quite nicely, respecting both conventions:

FirstWestern Family FirstChinese

Such as Andrew LEUNG Kwan-yue, Tommy CHEUNG Yu-yan, etc.

~~~
alistairSH
Is that western name official (on birth certificate or passport) or informal?

~~~
ksec
Could be both. Some have it in their formal identifications, but many don't.

~~~
FabHK
Yeah, and some get their Western name early, while some choose it as a
teenager or so. Which sometimes leads to weird choices - I met a guy called
"Nose", and a girl called "Money".

------
FabHK
There is an excellent Chinese singer (of German _Lieder_ , as it happens), who
used to go by the name of Shen Yang (with Shen being the family name). Now,
quoting Wikipedia:

> he went on to win the 2007 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.[4]
> After the win, noting confusion in the Western press over the name "Shen
> Yang", he decided to change its spelling to "Shenyang".

So that's somewhat unexpected, because while now the order is fixed, it really
looks like he only has one name.

(BTW, Indonesians frequently have only one name (even in their official
papers/passport), creating difficulties when booking flights, for example.
Obviates difficulties with ordering the names, though :-)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_(singer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_\(singer\))

~~~
sneak
I learned this fact when reading about Thant:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Thant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Thant)

------
favorited
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 importing some of it, so I couldn't
make case-by-case decisions).

This was just a fun app for personal use, so it wasn't the end of the world to
just punt on the data, but it was frustrating nonetheless.

~~~
caymanjim
Whenever I'm on a team building something new, I've fought hard to stop people
from splitting names into first/last. There's simply no right way to do it. In
addition to conventions like family name first in Japan, Spanish naming
conventions create confusion (First Paternal_Family Maternal_Family), and
there are rare outliers like mononyms as well. There is almost no use case--
aside from perhaps a genealogy site--where splitting the name provides any
benefit.

~~~
favorited
Interesting! I wouldn't have thought that would be best practice, but in
spending a little time trying to learn more (this page from W3[0] was really
enlightening), it makes perfect sense why "only split if you absolutely need
to" is good advice.

[0][https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-
names](https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names)

------
stordoff
What I find interesting is that there are exceptions to the current practice
in English. Yoko Taro (family name: Yoko) is known widely as Yoko Taro, yet
most other Japanese game developers are known as GivenName FamilyName (in
English).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Taro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Taro)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Hatsune Miku and her fellow vocaloids also seem to be an exception. They're
not real people of course, but they may as well be here.

~~~
bitwize
I always thought Miku was her given name.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It is, that's why she's an exception (to the practice of writing Japanese
surnames last in English).

------
_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.

------
headsupftw
In terms of Chinese names, my observation is that in English media, if your
name is printed as "first_name last_name" then you haven't made it yet. But if
you are somebody, your name will appear as "last_name first_name". E.g. Xi
Jinping, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping. When was the last time you heard "Ming Yao
the former Rockets center"?

~~~
Permit
Jack Ma seems like a counter example.

~~~
headsupftw
Not really a good counter example as "Jack Ma" is his English name (i.e. not
his legal name, not the one printed on his passport. more like a nickname that
can be easily remembered by westerners).

If you google his legal Chinese name, you will find that it's never "Yun Ma"
in English media. Instead it's always "Ma Yun"...because he is a big shot.

------
munmaek
This is unexpected and quite interesting. I think we totally gloss over the
fact that we've just been writing Japanese (and Korean) names incorrectly.

I've always thought it to be quite odd, and there are exceptions too. Mun Jae-
in, Kim Il-Seung, Kim Jong-Il are written correctly, so you might think
political figures get a pass, yet Syngman Rhee is backwards.

~~~
knolax
I think for Syngman Rhee the reason he is known that way in English is because
he spent a significant amount of his life living in the US and interacting
with Americans; In America the convention followed by most people with Asian
names is to use the English order in English.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngman_Rhee](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngman_Rhee)

~~~
munmaek
He didn't move to the US until he was ~29, in 1904. So even back then we got
their names backwards.

------
hiroshi3110
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.

~~~
ahartmetz
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.

~~~
Double_a_92
It's called ~"Peking" in most European languages.

~~~
7FE1CCE3
Most of Europe probably got it from France, who used the Cantonese
pronunciation: bāk-gīng

------
woodandsteel
I'm an English speaker who about a year ago got interested in a young Japanese
drummer,佐藤奏.

The standard English translation of her name is Kanade Sato. However, when I
use google translate on links in Japanese like articles that mention her, it
is amazing how often it comes out quite different, including putting the Sato
first.

I would also like to mention that Japanese writing has several different
systems. First there is Kanji, which is straight from Chinese script. Then
there are a couple of syllable-based systems, and finally they use Roman
script for many foreign words. Sentences tend to be a mix of Kanji and
syllable-based words. Also interesting is that there are usually no spaces
between words, and the reader is expected to figure it out on their own. But
if this might be too confusing, then a dot is added in between.

One more oddity. Kanji characters can,as I understand it, have more than one
word associated with them. As a consequence, there is a drummer in Japan whose
given name is usually translated as Senri, but sometimes Chisato.

Kanade and Senri together (skip the first minute, it's just the MC lady
talking)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sf3DgS3LEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sf3DgS3LEA)

------
Causality1
Personally I think this is a matter of translation. In English the personal
name comes first followed by the surname. In Japanese honorifics come after
the name but it would be quite silly to ask foreign media to call Abe Shinzo
"Abe Shinzo Mr." instead of "Mr. Abe Shinzo" or for an American to ask British
media to not refer to American mothers as "mum". Sometimes localizing a name
means altering it.

~~~
jasonjei
I don’t think it’s just a matter of translation preference. I think it’s also
to be respectful to the people whose names are being mentioned.

When Chinese or Japanese concert Roman names to Hanzi/Kana, they try to
observe the FIRSTNAME LASTNAME convention if preferred by that culture. Such
as スティーブン・ポール・“スティーブ”・ジョブズ (Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs)

~~~
JamesBarney
This is something that is hard for me to understand because I wouldn't think
it was disrespectful to be called Barney James in another language.(honestly I
wouldn't care if they called me Barney James in English)

------
BrandoElFollito
How should they be addressed, then?

Suppose we have FAMILYNAME Firstname, what is the way to correctly convey

Dear Mr... (formal opening ) Dear... (casual opening) ?

------
thepra
Best thing would do is to have a single field for name and surname and other
legal variations. Like many pointed out the cultural differences are way too
many to pull up with more than one field and manage them all algorithmically.
That's a recipe for disaster when the culture changes the way they use the
identity.

I'm a developer and I'm not gonna fall for that.

------
mimixco
So does this mean the Minister's name is Tara KONO or Kono TARA? I can't tell
from this article. I totally understand people wanting to have their names
written correctly, but if the reader is confused, is that going to help people
to understand one's name correctly? In the US, I don't think it would.

~~~
readyp1
Represented as the Minister proposes, it would be KONO Tarо̄. This relies on a
bit of cultural knowledge; 太郎 (Tarо̄) is a _very_ common first name for males
in Japan.

The article is a smidge ironic, though; in this article about proposing a Last
First standard, the Times refers to the promulgator via First Last. I suppose
they're technically in keeping with current standards by using First Last,
since the Minister's proposal is brand new.

~~~
toyg
_> The article is a smidge ironic, though_

It is reporting an _intention_ from a minister. When and if the minister
actually acts on it, by extending an official request from the Japanese
Government, I guess they will respond officially in some way. There is no need
to drop one's pants just because a minister opened his mouth.

------
knolax
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.

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

~~~
tgp
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 children are half-Japanese (with my foreign family name),
but I have to say it'd be weird to see an article that writes about, say, "Tom
Smith and his daughter Smith Hanako". Similarly, reading a Japanese text,
seeing "トム・スミスと娘のスミス花子" (tomu sumisu to musume no sumisu hanako) would feel
weirdly inconsistent.

~~~
jac_no_k
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.

------
pleasecalllater
Yea, I have always this problem with people from Japan coming here. When they
tell their names, I'm not sure if they do as they do in Japan or they do for
me to understand. I always have to ask them.

------
MFLoon
Coincidentally I was recently working on a project of localizing my company's
product into Japanese, and the client who had requested the project asked if
we could also address the name ordering issue. It turned out to be pretty non-
trivial and we ended up not doing it, but a cursory search of our competitors
showed that not many western SaaS products who localize to Japanese seem to do
it either. I wonder if this policy stance will change that trend.

------
planteen
Working with Japanese colleagues and customers, you calling everyone by their
last name with the suffix "-san". In discussions even when the person is not
present, Americans still say "Abe-san" since it is how you always address
them. Is "-san" only supposed to be used when you are addressing the person?
I'm unsure on the correct way to use it.

~~~
patio11
You should -san the outgroup (including when speaking about them in the 3rd
person); you should not -san the ingroup. Whether someone is outgroup or
ingroup depends on who you're talking to and can change.

There are other options as well.

In general, Americans who are rubbing up against Japanese people in a not-
specifically-Japanese context get lots of leeway on this question. (One has to
be good if one works as a full-time employee of a traditionally managed
Japanese corporation; if one is entertaining a delegation from Japan at a US
event, one gets a lot of kudos for trying.)

Note also that there are some people with preferences here, including some
preferences which aren't necessarily socially normative.

~~~
pndy
> you should not -san the ingroup

I'm not sure but in that case it would be Abe-tachi?

~~~
patio11
No, -tachi is plural rather than an honorific.

If I’m talking to you, who does not work at Stripe with me, and I promise a
call from a named coworker, I would call them by their last name with no
honorific. This is because my coworker is an ingroup when speaking to anyone
outside the company in a business context (the outgroup).

If I were talking about that coworker with a member of my team, in most
plausible cases the 3rd party coworker is the outgroup in that discussion, and
I would refer to them as $NAME-san.

------
CarVac
Personally I support this.

I think Japanese names sound wrong in western name order: most family names
have a distinctive sound and construction.

------
sunstone
Japan has a group oriented culture so the family (group) name takes precedent
over the individual's name. However a little more individualism might be a
small step in the right direction. Certainly the Japan I know has much more in
common with Europe than it does with China at this point.

------
zapzupnz
This is fantastic. Living in both the English and Japanese-speaking worlds,
it'll be nice not having to go through mental gymnastics to remember how to
call somebody in whichever language. I think consistency is preferable; it's
surely not impossible for people to be educated on name order.

~~~
FabHK
> This is fantastic. Living in both the English and Japanese-speaking worlds
> [...] I think consistency is preferable

If I'm not mistaken, his suggestion would make the Japanese convention _less_
consistent with the English convention (while making it more consistent with
the Chinese convention).

~~~
zapzupnz
It would make the English rendering of Japanese names consistent with … well,
themselves. 安倍 (Abe) 晋三 (Shinzo) will be Abe Shinzo, not Shinzo Abe.

The Japanese don't reverse Western names, so Steve Jobs is never Jobs Steve.

~~~
frosted-flakes
> The Japanese don't reverse Western names, so Steve Jobs is never Jobs Steve.

Do the Japanese write Western names in the latin alphabet ("Steve Jobs"), or
do they transform it into their own script based on how it sounds? If it's
kept in the latin alphabet, of course they don't reverse it, the same way we
wouldn't reverse it if we kept "Shinzo Abe" in Japanese script ("安倍 晋三").

~~~
zapzupnz
I think you're missing the point. Whether in katakana or in romaji (Latin
script), the Japanese don't reverse our names, so there's no reason for us to
do that to theirs whatever script is used.

As I said to someone else, transliteration doesn't come into it. After all,
the writing system doesn't matter when _speaking_ a name when the
pronunciation is known but the orthography isn't; it still must be said in the
right order.

------
gibolt
I'd personally love to see romanized Chinese/Japanese names contain a space
between all characters. Westerners would still botch them, but would do a
better job discerning where to divide the pronunciation.

------
ben_utzer
What about this kind of names?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNoS2BU6bbQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNoS2BU6bbQ)

------
tus87
Seems they get Korean names right more often than not...see a lot of Kim Jong
Il (and similar)....except if they have a westernized first name like Gloria
Kim.

------
arduanika
Unfortunately they'll have to get 51% consensus to change the algorithm,
thanks to Nakamoto Satoshi.

------
viburnum
The names in the credits of Japanese films often vary from person to person.
Is it just personal preferences?

~~~
jasonjei
In Japanese? It’s almost guaranteed to be LASTNAME FIRSTNAME if in Chinese
symbols (kanji/漢字) unless the name is written in kana.

金城 武 KANESHIRO Takeshi

------
ksec
I really hope this become the Standard for all Japanese names in Western
Media.

It is annoying when you hear how in Japanese Anime speaks and you have
subtitle or online discussion using the name in totally different order. Or
other forms of Media when you know that is not how the name was suppose to
work.

------
mshockwave
i understand using family name first for leader/president or public press, but
iirc most of the asian country still using given name before family name in
their passports

~~~
7DA70964
Passports have completely separate fields for "surname" and "given names". And
the machine-readable representation at the bottom is always SURNAME<GIVEN<
even for countries that have the opposite convention.

