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Many Indonesian Javanese people only have a single name. It is more rare these days, but certainly not zero, or only old people who don't use computer. I've m

by throwaway2037 3y ago

Many Indonesian Javanese people only have a single name. It is more rare these days, but certainly not zero, or only old people who don't use computer. I've met people in their 20s with a single name. Also, in (South) Korea, depending upon the person's preference, they may choose to do family name first or last. It's crazy. I don't know why. (Can someone explain it to me?) As a result, most will write their romanized family name in all uppercase. Then, it can easily be identified as first or last. The easiest place to see it is in movie credits. When the screen is full of romanized Korean names, you see a mix of family name in all upper as first or last. South Indian names can be incredibly long. Many people will shorten to use a single character from either first or last name. Just have a single free text field. That should work for all cultures. Allow for 64 chars minimum (hello Spaniards!) and possibly 128 chars. Also, you might try a second field for "nick name". Lots of people with very long names use a shorter form in less formal settings.

gottorf 3y ago
> Also, in (South) Korea, depending upon the person's preference, they may choose to do family name first or last. It's crazy. I don't know why. (Can someone explain it to me?) In Korean, the family name comes first, then the given name. (There are no middle names.) It is almost always a single-character surname (Kim, Lee, etc.) and a two-character given name, though there are exceptions, with a small minority of surnames being two characters, and a small minority of given names being one character. Romanization rules have changed over the years. The first president of the modern Republic of Korea was Syngman Rhee, with his given name Syngman first (with no spaces or hyphens) and family name Rhee last. Then take Park Chung Hee, the third president, in office in the 60s and 70s; his family name is Park, and his given name is Chung Hee. A few presidents later, you have Roh Tae-woo, in office around the 90s, with family name Roh and given name Tae-woo; notice the hyphenation. The current president is Yoon Suk Yeul, back to not having a hyphen to join the two characters of his given name. Sometimes it depends on when it was that someone was first issued a passport, because the government is loathe to change the way someone's romanized name is spelled after the first issuance.
- gniv 3y ago
  > with a small minority of surnames being two characters I was confused for a long time when I saw the name of Namkoong Min, I thought they wrote it reversed for some reason. Now that he's in the news again, I realized Namkoong 남궁 is the family name -- never seen one like this before.
mcv 3y ago
I used to know an American guy in Amsterdam who only had a single name. His explanation was always that his parents were a bit weird. It was a short 4-letter name too. He might well be in the running for the shortest name ever.
- Zekio 3y ago
  I recall seeing an article once about someone immigrating with a single character name having to basically pick a name as the IT systems didn't allow it
- muzani 3y ago
  Some weird names I've seen in the real world are "Boy" and "Baby"
  - mcv 3y ago
    I've got a coworker called Boy. I also remember something on TV with a recurring character called Boy. This is in Netherland, so maybe the fact that it's a foreign word makes it a bit more acceptable?

gottorf 3y ago

> Also, in (South) Korea, depending upon the person's preference, they may choose to do family name first or last. It's crazy. I don't know why. (Can someone explain it to me?) In Korean, the family name comes first, then the given name. (There are no middle names.) It is almost always a single-character surname (Kim, Lee, etc.) and a two-character given name, though there are exceptions, with a small minority of surnames being two characters, and a small minority of given names being one character. Romanization rules have changed over the years. The first president of the modern Republic of Korea was Syngman Rhee, with his given name Syngman first (with no spaces or hyphens) and family name Rhee last. Then take Park Chung Hee, the third president, in office in the 60s and 70s; his family name is Park, and his given name is Chung Hee. A few presidents later, you have Roh Tae-woo, in office around the 90s, with family name Roh and given name Tae-woo; notice the hyphenation. The current president is Yoon Suk Yeul, back to not having a hyphen to join the two characters of his given name. Sometimes it depends on when it was that someone was first issued a passport, because the government is loathe to change the way someone's romanized name is spelled after the first issuance.

gniv 3y ago
> with a small minority of surnames being two characters I was confused for a long time when I saw the name of Namkoong Min, I thought they wrote it reversed for some reason. Now that he's in the news again, I realized Namkoong 남궁 is the family name -- never seen one like this before.

mcv 3y ago

I used to know an American guy in Amsterdam who only had a single name. His explanation was always that his parents were a bit weird. It was a short 4-letter name too. He might well be in the running for the shortest name ever.

Zekio 3y ago
I recall seeing an article once about someone immigrating with a single character name having to basically pick a name as the IT systems didn't allow it
muzani 3y ago
Some weird names I've seen in the real world are "Boy" and "Baby"
- mcv 3y ago
  I've got a coworker called Boy. I also remember something on TV with a recurring character called Boy. This is in Netherland, so maybe the fact that it's a foreign word makes it a bit more acceptable?