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I've been having a localization issue in Gmail that's even more frustrating and unacceptable than this one. I speak English but regularly correspond with peopl

I've been having a localization issue in Gmail that's even more frustrating and unacceptable than this one. I speak English but regularly correspond with people who speak Hebrew. Hebrew is written from right to left, so "john doe" is written "eod nhoj." This is normal. But when Gmail writes Hebrew names in English, it often transposes the letters only and not the first/last fields, so you end up with "Doe John." The problem is that this happens inconsistently, so you never know if it's going to occur. I can't tell you how many times I've mixed up people's first and last names, which is embarrassing! Because I don't speak Hebrew, I don't have a natural sense for which names are first names vs which names are last names, so sometimes it's impossible for me to decipher which is which. Very frustrating.

names_are_hard 6y ago
If it's any consolation, Israeli names (presumably the names you're encountering in Hebrew) are often ambiguous with respect to both first/last and gender. The latter might be a nice thing from a progressive standpoint, but is particularly challenging in a language that is strictly gendered - you can't say "you" in Hebrew without decided if the subject should be addressed in masculine or feminine. Example from a quick DDG search for the name "Arnon" which was the first thing that came to mind. Both Yigal Arnon and Arnon Segev are names of attorneys, so Arnon is definitely ambiguous. The latter's law firm employs an associate named Chen Moshe, where Moshe is a common biblical first name (Moses) and Chen could be a man or a woman. https://segevlaw.com/ https://segevlaw.com/