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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 ot
by stordoff 7y ago
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
- gaspoweredcat 7y agoto be fair Yoko Taro is kind of an exception to most rules
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y agoHatsune 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 7y agoI always thought Miku was her given name.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y agoIt is, that's why she's an exception (to the practice of writing Japanese surnames last in English).
- lmm 7y agoI think reversing names was only ever something "official"/"respectable" translators did. Names that came up in a more casual/fan-based context first have stuck with Japanese order.
- smrq 7y agoHeh, and on that very Wikipedia page, his wife's name is written in the opposite order.
- 4bpp 7y agoI always was under the impression that a good portion of the news outlets that cite his name in the native order do so because they are fundamentally confused about what part of it is the first name and what part is the family name, which might be because the surname (Yokō, with a long second o) looks like a well-known even in the West female first name (Yōko, with a long first o, cf. John Lennon's wife) in the standard romanisation that neither uses macrons nor mirrors the native orthography (which would give Yokou vs. Youko). See all the instances of him being referred to as "Taro" (i.e. what is actually his first name): [1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-04-13-yoko-taro-we-dont-need-to-think-globally-to-sell-globally https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-04-13-yoko-taro-... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/yoko-taro-nier-automata/ https://www.wired.com/story/yoko-taro-nier-automata/ etc.
- marchrock 7y agoI thought this was because his recent work were done under his pen name "ヨコオタロウ (Yoko Taro)", which is fully katakana-ized version of his real name "横尾太郎 (Yoko Taro)" but treated as one word.