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Personal opinion. As an Asian person, don’t overthink this. Just have fields for family name and given name to distinguish between the two. Sure, when there’

Personal opinion. As an Asian person, don’t overthink this. Just have fields for family name and given name to distinguish between the two. Sure, when there’s a text field saying hello “first name last name” it might be flipped but this shouldn’t be a deal breaker or offensive in any capacity. Worst case is you can have a toggle they can click but from a developer standpoint, that might be over engineering for something that might cause headaches later.

evolve2k 3y ago
Yes assume I have a Family name field and a Given Name field, the question is how to display them in the right order. Im considering having a select field next to the name something like Name Order: "Western style", "Eastern style" or Name Order: "Given Name, Family Name", "Family name, Given Name" With a bit of extra work I can detect the country set a default for this field, while allowing users in places like Pakistan to still get the display order they want. But I've never seen it done this way before, hence my curiosity to ask everyone.
- e63f67dd-065b 3y ago
  As others have mentioned, this is impossible to get right -- for the simple reason that there is no consistent order -- not for the same country, the same geographic area, the same culture, or any other marker you can possibly think of. Example: in Malaysia and Singapore, Chinese people can have traditional Chinese names -- SAA for surname and 2 characters that's their "given name" so to speak. Some have an English name -- but it's written ESAA. Some only have one character names, so it's ESA. Some surnames have 2 characters, so ESSA/ESSAA. When filling out US forms, ESAA usually turns into Englishname Surname, and SAA turns into Givenname Surname. So the display order for the first is firstlast, but the second is lastfirst. Same country, same culture, different display order depending on whether their parents gave them English names or they chose one later in life. When there's a middle name field, often ESAA names turns into E AA S - first middle last. This display order is wrong. It should be first last middle. As you can see, even within the same country, same culture, same neighbourhood, you still don't have a consistent order. It's simply not possible to do this in a consistent way.
  - evolve2k 3y ago
    What have you seen as best examples of interfaces that support your local context. Anyone ideas beyond throw everything together in one long field. Part of what’s lost with this approach is you then don’t really know which part is which. Aka loss of semantic clarity.
- chrismorgan 3y ago
  Country isn’t adequate; different parts of India use different conventions. To list the two states I’m most familiar with: West Bengal is mostly “Given Family” <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_name>, while Telangana largely uses “F. Given” (family name normally abbreviated, in my experience; the initial can also be more than one Latin letter for some Telugu consonants, mostly “Ch.”, and can be initials for more than one word) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_names>. Seriously, just avoid splitting name fields if you can help it. Do you absolutely have to have split names? Begrudgingly do so and acknowledge things will never be right for everyone. But if not, just don’t (and don’t make the mistake of assuming a format in order to do things like surname sorting—with a unified field you simply can’t do surname sorting).
- gandalfgreybeer 3y ago
  Minor thing, don’t call it “Western style” or “Eastern style”. I’m not sure what the correct term is. There are plenty of Asian countries that don’t follow last name - first name so it’s not necessarily an “eastern” thing. another opinion from me about automating based on country. It’s a cool thing to implement but might not be worth the effort. An example I have is in the Philippines, majority of people go First Name Last Name. However, there’s a Chinese sub population that has last name first name. But then most of this sub population also have “Christian” names that they use in Most official documents or websites. I’m pretty sure other countries will also have similar nuances. Maybe a screen name or username will be the razor.
spicybright 3y ago
Well, if the app is designed for the asia pacific region then last name first name should be default to fit the majority of user's expectation, no?
- gandalfgreybeer 3y ago
  This is lumping Asia Pacific into one big group. For example in the Philippines, its first name - last name that’s the standard. And then there’s a minority of Chinese-Filipinos that sometimes have traditional Chinese names. It’s more complex than what it seems that I think a razor would work rather than going through all cases.
- ralferoo 3y ago
  Even in countries where you might assume this is true, it's not always! For instance in China, most names are single character family name followed by a two character given name. Some rare family names are two characters and usually they will have a single character given name. Some people have single character family name and single character given name. Then you get people from different ethnic groups who put the family name at the end. Often these are characterised by a long given name and then an interpunct joining that with the family name, but that's not always done. For instance a popular singer at the moment has the Chinese name 希林娜依·高 where 高 is a fairly normal Chinese surname so it's easy to identify as such. A very popular actress is named 迪丽热巴·迪力木拉提 so it's not always the case you can easily tell which name is which. Even for those with simple construction, so the characters are FAB (family name, and 2 characters for given name). You'll find that within a family, where you might expect pet names, it's common instead to call each other by AB, except when they're annoyed and use the full name FAB. In a business context, someone with a higher rank might be F先生 (Mr F), F总 (Manager F), F董 (Director F), but close colleagues might call you AA, BB, 小A, 小B etc - but typically they won't get to choose that, they'll be told by the person "you can call me ___" and they might allow different people to use different names or react with their official title if someone uses too informal a name with them. I've got Chinese friends who exclusively use an English name at work in China. I've got a friend who later moved to the UK, and most people in the UK know her by her Chinese name, but except for a few close school friends, nobody in her working life in China even knew her real name because the company she worked for only used English names (this isn't very common though). In other countries, many people don't use their first name much. In the UK, I've known quite a few people who've primarily used their middle name, and others (including me) are generally known by others with a name that isn't among any of their given names. Sometimes these are common transformations, e.g. David to Dave, David to Dai (in Wales), but other times people just use initials or nicknames (e.g. I've got a friend who pretty everybody calls Danger, it started as a joke with friends, but now even his parents sometimes use it!) Anyway, that was a long diversion, but it's always safer I think to ask for the full name as one field that not try to change it, but use it exactly as provided for official purposes, and to also ask for a preferred name for your communication with them. In cases were you share the name to other people, e.g. an online community, you might want an additional display name which might well be different again.
freddie_mercury 3y ago
Don't do this. In Vietnam names like Nguyen Thi Anh Mai are common. The family name is "Nguyen" is the family name. "Anh Mai" is the "first name". But they should be called "Mai". And reversing the order "Mai Anh Thi Nguyen" is just wrong. And Catholic families in Vietnam often have names "Nguyen Thi To but everybody calls me by my baptismal name of Mary". Or you have a "house name" (i.e. your real name) and an outside name (so that ghosts can't follow you home). Or you have your real name and an unofficial English name (for reasons both good & bad) that literally everyone at work calls you. In the Philippines people have names Anna Katrina Gomez. But you don't call them Anna. You call them Katrina because that's how it often works in the Philippines. The solution is simple: One field is "what is your full name?" One field is "what would you like to be called?" You don't need to try to infer one from the other.
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  No. Either the name serves some legal purpose and they need to write it in full and 2 fields supports that. Or the name serves no purpose and they can write what they want in those 2 fields.
- silisili 3y ago
  Are you missing a name from your PH example perhaps? Everyone I've known there has their mother's maiden name as a middle name, and father's last as last name. Then on marriage sliding the original last name to the middle name. But one thing I did notice is that very few go by any given name, usually a play on it or a nickname instead.
- Saigonautica 3y ago
  Yes please! My wife and I constantly struggle with this kind of thing. When there's just a "name" field that permits some high number of characters, it's fine. Which name is my "first name" or "last name" also depends on what identity document I'm using. I immigrated to Asia and switched to the family-name-first convention, but my birth certificate and so on are the opposite. So it's conceivable that a system requiring two forms of identification has both name orders, and both are correct. Names are awful.
matsemann 3y ago
Eh, the "don't overthink it" is how all tech has become western centric, especially US-centric. In the grand scheme of things it's a small annoyance, but having your culture or norms constantly overwritten by some tech-bros is bad. Like, my name still doesn't work in a lot of systems that expect ascii characters only. Like, thanks for deciding that names æøåü or similar isn't a valid name.

evolve2k 3y ago

Yes assume I have a Family name field and a Given Name field, the question is how to display them in the right order. Im considering having a select field next to the name something like Name Order: "Western style", "Eastern style" or Name Order: "Given Name, Family Name", "Family name, Given Name" With a bit of extra work I can detect the country set a default for this field, while allowing users in places like Pakistan to still get the display order they want. But I've never seen it done this way before, hence my curiosity to ask everyone.

e63f67dd-065b 3y ago
As others have mentioned, this is impossible to get right -- for the simple reason that there is no consistent order -- not for the same country, the same geographic area, the same culture, or any other marker you can possibly think of. Example: in Malaysia and Singapore, Chinese people can have traditional Chinese names -- SAA for surname and 2 characters that's their "given name" so to speak. Some have an English name -- but it's written ESAA. Some only have one character names, so it's ESA. Some surnames have 2 characters, so ESSA/ESSAA. When filling out US forms, ESAA usually turns into Englishname Surname, and SAA turns into Givenname Surname. So the display order for the first is firstlast, but the second is lastfirst. Same country, same culture, different display order depending on whether their parents gave them English names or they chose one later in life. When there's a middle name field, often ESAA names turns into E AA S - first middle last. This display order is wrong. It should be first last middle. As you can see, even within the same country, same culture, same neighbourhood, you still don't have a consistent order. It's simply not possible to do this in a consistent way.
- evolve2k 3y ago
  What have you seen as best examples of interfaces that support your local context. Anyone ideas beyond throw everything together in one long field. Part of what’s lost with this approach is you then don’t really know which part is which. Aka loss of semantic clarity.
chrismorgan 3y ago
Country isn’t adequate; different parts of India use different conventions. To list the two states I’m most familiar with: West Bengal is mostly “Given Family” <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_name>, while Telangana largely uses “F. Given” (family name normally abbreviated, in my experience; the initial can also be more than one Latin letter for some Telugu consonants, mostly “Ch.”, and can be initials for more than one word) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_names>. Seriously, just avoid splitting name fields if you can help it. Do you absolutely have to have split names? Begrudgingly do so and acknowledge things will never be right for everyone. But if not, just don’t (and don’t make the mistake of assuming a format in order to do things like surname sorting—with a unified field you simply can’t do surname sorting).
gandalfgreybeer 3y ago
Minor thing, don’t call it “Western style” or “Eastern style”. I’m not sure what the correct term is. There are plenty of Asian countries that don’t follow last name - first name so it’s not necessarily an “eastern” thing. another opinion from me about automating based on country. It’s a cool thing to implement but might not be worth the effort. An example I have is in the Philippines, majority of people go First Name Last Name. However, there’s a Chinese sub population that has last name first name. But then most of this sub population also have “Christian” names that they use in Most official documents or websites. I’m pretty sure other countries will also have similar nuances. Maybe a screen name or username will be the razor.

spicybright 3y ago

Well, if the app is designed for the asia pacific region then last name first name should be default to fit the majority of user's expectation, no?

gandalfgreybeer 3y ago
This is lumping Asia Pacific into one big group. For example in the Philippines, its first name - last name that’s the standard. And then there’s a minority of Chinese-Filipinos that sometimes have traditional Chinese names. It’s more complex than what it seems that I think a razor would work rather than going through all cases.
ralferoo 3y ago
Even in countries where you might assume this is true, it's not always! For instance in China, most names are single character family name followed by a two character given name. Some rare family names are two characters and usually they will have a single character given name. Some people have single character family name and single character given name. Then you get people from different ethnic groups who put the family name at the end. Often these are characterised by a long given name and then an interpunct joining that with the family name, but that's not always done. For instance a popular singer at the moment has the Chinese name 希林娜依·高 where 高 is a fairly normal Chinese surname so it's easy to identify as such. A very popular actress is named 迪丽热巴·迪力木拉提 so it's not always the case you can easily tell which name is which. Even for those with simple construction, so the characters are FAB (family name, and 2 characters for given name). You'll find that within a family, where you might expect pet names, it's common instead to call each other by AB, except when they're annoyed and use the full name FAB. In a business context, someone with a higher rank might be F先生 (Mr F), F总 (Manager F), F董 (Director F), but close colleagues might call you AA, BB, 小A, 小B etc - but typically they won't get to choose that, they'll be told by the person "you can call me ___" and they might allow different people to use different names or react with their official title if someone uses too informal a name with them. I've got Chinese friends who exclusively use an English name at work in China. I've got a friend who later moved to the UK, and most people in the UK know her by her Chinese name, but except for a few close school friends, nobody in her working life in China even knew her real name because the company she worked for only used English names (this isn't very common though). In other countries, many people don't use their first name much. In the UK, I've known quite a few people who've primarily used their middle name, and others (including me) are generally known by others with a name that isn't among any of their given names. Sometimes these are common transformations, e.g. David to Dave, David to Dai (in Wales), but other times people just use initials or nicknames (e.g. I've got a friend who pretty everybody calls Danger, it started as a joke with friends, but now even his parents sometimes use it!) Anyway, that was a long diversion, but it's always safer I think to ask for the full name as one field that not try to change it, but use it exactly as provided for official purposes, and to also ask for a preferred name for your communication with them. In cases were you share the name to other people, e.g. an online community, you might want an additional display name which might well be different again.

freddie_mercury 3y ago

Don't do this. In Vietnam names like Nguyen Thi Anh Mai are common. The family name is "Nguyen" is the family name. "Anh Mai" is the "first name". But they should be called "Mai". And reversing the order "Mai Anh Thi Nguyen" is just wrong. And Catholic families in Vietnam often have names "Nguyen Thi To but everybody calls me by my baptismal name of Mary". Or you have a "house name" (i.e. your real name) and an outside name (so that ghosts can't follow you home). Or you have your real name and an unofficial English name (for reasons both good & bad) that literally everyone at work calls you. In the Philippines people have names Anna Katrina Gomez. But you don't call them Anna. You call them Katrina because that's how it often works in the Philippines. The solution is simple: One field is "what is your full name?" One field is "what would you like to be called?" You don't need to try to infer one from the other.

throwaway2990 3y ago
No. Either the name serves some legal purpose and they need to write it in full and 2 fields supports that. Or the name serves no purpose and they can write what they want in those 2 fields.
silisili 3y ago
Are you missing a name from your PH example perhaps? Everyone I've known there has their mother's maiden name as a middle name, and father's last as last name. Then on marriage sliding the original last name to the middle name. But one thing I did notice is that very few go by any given name, usually a play on it or a nickname instead.
Saigonautica 3y ago
Yes please! My wife and I constantly struggle with this kind of thing. When there's just a "name" field that permits some high number of characters, it's fine. Which name is my "first name" or "last name" also depends on what identity document I'm using. I immigrated to Asia and switched to the family-name-first convention, but my birth certificate and so on are the opposite. So it's conceivable that a system requiring two forms of identification has both name orders, and both are correct. Names are awful.

matsemann 3y ago

Eh, the "don't overthink it" is how all tech has become western centric, especially US-centric. In the grand scheme of things it's a small annoyance, but having your culture or norms constantly overwritten by some tech-bros is bad. Like, my name still doesn't work in a lot of systems that expect ascii characters only. Like, thanks for deciding that names æøåü or similar isn't a valid name.