4 ms·
I don't know, name systems seem to quickly betray their origin in little sentences of specificity in the languages used at the time, before they became systemat
by lotyrin 11y ago
I don't know, name systems seem to quickly betray their origin in little sentences of specificity in the languages used at the time, before they became systematized according to common western practice (if that even happened, depending on culture).
John? John who? Oh, "John the Smith" with time, the is dropped - the name is carried forward despite people's profession, people post-facto come up with systems for "First" and "Last" names, but the order remains.
In Japanese, grammar flows the other way, "Ken of the mountain field" is written "Yama no Ta no Ken", "Yamada Ken" because of grammar though, the surname still comes first.
And the biggest one is Patronymic names that maintain the untouched grammar of specifying who you mean based on who's kid they are "Ori, Eric's daughter." = "Ori Ericsdottir", "Mateo's Luis" "Luis de Mateo", "O'Connor" "ibn `Amr" etc. etc.