Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 January 8

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January 8

Japanese vs. Hungarian personal names

Both these cultures use the Surname Given name (SG) order, unlike most others, which are Given name Surname (GS) (partly struck out in order to retrospectively render irrelevant much of the following discussion, and to ensure the actual topic of this thread is clear. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:00, 11 January 2018 (UTC)) We usually have to reverse the names in English language contexts, no big deal.

Most Hungarian given names have well known cognates with other European names (Antal = Anthony; Miklos = Nicholas, Ferenc = Francis etc), and others are well known (Geza, Attila ...) so it's not hard to work out which is the given name and which the surname. Or whether the names have already been reversed for our benefit and no further adjustment is required.

Japanese is a rather tougher nut to crack. Some names are fairly well known in the West, but the majority are not. It's clear that a problem exists, since most lists of Japanese names that I've seen have some in GS order but others in SG. In Wikipedia, we seem to use whichever order is the most usual one for the subject, and if that happens to be SG we tend to add a note to say that the first name is the surname (Katsuragawa Hoshū, Sugita Genpaku, [1]). But not always (Nakajima Hiroyuki, et al.)

So, why is it that some Japanese names are known in the West in GS order but others in SG, while all Hungarian names are known to us in GS order? Is it just that it's harder for us to work out which Japanese name is which, or is it some sort of respect thing, or what? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:40, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not absolutely sure that's always 100% the case, but Hungary is a small surname-first island in the middle of surname-last common European practices, so they're presumably very used to adapting their name order for foreigners, while that's not true for Japan...

By the way, there can be a few clues for Japanese given names -- ending in vowel + o usually indicates a masculine name (Kazuo etc.), while a name which is two moras in length plus a final -ko is often feminine. AnonMoos (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I'd just like to add that the ko in Japanese girls' names—literally `child`—may have started out as a diminutive suffix (akin to "princess," "Miss," or "sweet little") before eventually becoming an indivisible part of their proper names.Pine (talk) 12:11, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] I suggest (yes, OP but something to work on) that because Hungary is part of Europe, Hungarians have long known that the predominant Western custom is GS, so they have always introduced themselves to foreigners (and spoken and written their names in other languages) in that manner.

By contrast, Japan was much more isolated, particularly from significant interactions with Europeans, until the Meiji period (i.e. the mid-nineteenth century), so they have much less history of wanting/needing to accommodate themselves to the GS custom, while at the same time most Europeans who came into contact with them soon became aware of Japan's SG custom and worked with it. In modern times, therefore, Japanese people retain their own SG custom domestically, with only those who work with Westerners, particularly outside Japan, or who want to build an international following, sometimes adopting GS in those contexts, or not, according to personal preference.

Compare also the common custom of Chinese people, also SG domestically, adopting a GS name using a new Western G and their own S. An well-known example (of direct personal relevance to my own family) was the late Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who readily used the name Harry Lee not only when in England, but also in informal English-speaking company in Singapore. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.41.3 (talk) 22:57, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Except he was known to the world at large as Lee Kuan Yew, not Kuan Yew Lee. Just as we know of a certain Mao Zedong, not Zedong Mao. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:50, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that was my point: that particular widespread Chinese adaptive custom doesn't reverse the Chinese SG form, it creates a new GS with the Chinese S prefaced by a new Western G – that's why I said "compare". Some Japanese people also do this, or adopt a more "Western-friendly" G for use with foreigners.

I presume, by the way, that you've read our article Japanese name, which also mentions the likely relevant point that most Japanese families only adopted a surname in the 19th century? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.41.3 (talk) 14:34, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

No, I haven't read it, but my question relates only insofar as a Japanese person actually has both a given name and a surname, so what may have obtained in earlier times is out of scope. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:56, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

• Jack, do you have a source that shows the given name - surname pattern is the "norm"? Also, what about Genus species, and Latin names and Patronymics, as well as single-name societies? μηδείς (talk) 05:19, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

In Russia, it is common for people to put the surname first. It is more formal to do this, so business cards are always according to wikt:ФИО (i.e., surname–given name–patronymic). The surname usually comes first in military contexts, lists, award ceremonies, obits, documents, forms, IDs, and so on. The other order with the given name first is more informal and therefore more common, but the ФИО order is still quite common in Russia. Of course with Russian names, it is almost always obvious which name is which, just by the form. Russian surnames usually end in –ов/-ова, -ев/-ева, -ёв/-ёва, –ин/-ина, -ын/-ына, -ский/-ская, -цкий/-цкая, or -ой/-ая. Patronymics end in -вич/-вна. The other name that does not have one of these endings is the given name.

Speaking of Genus names, formal Russian practice is to switch the order and place the adjective second, as in: клён ясенелистный (literally, "maple ash-leafed" = ashleaf maple). —Stephen (talk) 06:33, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Medeis, I never said it was the norm, I said "most others". The rest of your queries are not relevant to my question, which was about how Hungarian and Japanese names are treated differently in the anglosphere. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:18, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Even Russian Wikipedia puts the surname first in all biography titles. — Kpalion^(talk) 13:42, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

This policy was highly controversial when it was enacted. Other than in encyclopaedias (incl. WP) and other alphabetic lists, Russian given names usually precede the family names. --194.213.3.4 (talk) 15:22, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Jack, I mentioned English because I took that as your main context, and assumed Western and Europe were just used to avoid repeating English custom. Without attributing any arguments to you I would point out Spanish naming customs in which the Mother's family name is given after the father's family name (Think 'Chelsea Clinton Rodham') and there can be confusion with English speakers thinking the father's name is the person's middle name, or even native Spanish speakers being unsure when Someone like Jose Antonio Cruz could be the son of mister Cruz (or of the unmarried Ms. Cruz) with Antonio as a middle name, or Antonio could be the father's last name, and Cruz the mother's last name. That's not half of the possible confusion due to marriage and noble stylings, so readers should refere to the article.

Then of course you know, Jack, that Russian names have both gender and case, as well as the second name being a patronymic, not a middle name. English speakers often mistake the patronymic for the last name. Again, readers should see Russian naming customs.

Then there is Latin, where Julius Caesar's family name is Julius, Caesar (one of many possible cognomina) is basically a nickname, and his first name, Gaius (Abbreviated C!) is one of only a handful of praenomina (fewer than 40, about a dozen, like Marcus and Quintus, in common use) available; while women might bare only the family name, with no praenomen or cognomen, or the cognomen "secunda" used to distinguished the first-born plain-old Julia from her younger sister. Again, see Roman naming customs.

The ancient Greeks pretty much used just one name, but often appended an "of [polis]" or a patronymic to avoid confusion. Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature paralleled the Roman system, with the Genus wikt:gens first, and only one species name, with the possibility of further names (H. sapiens sapiens v.s. H. sapiens neanderthalensis) to distinguish varieties that could (or were found to be able) to interbreed.

That's not even to go into Arabic naming conventions, where men are often named after both their father and their sons, as well as their home towns/clans. μηδείς (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree with Medeis that "most others" is fairly questionable since it depends a lot on what you count. Considering that most East Asian cultures use the surname - given name order and they represent a fair chunk of the human population and there are a whole bunch who don't really have anything that could be called a surname so it's questionable whether "Given name Surname" is really entirely accurate even if the patronym is usually later and then there are those mononym ones, and that quite a few of the practices now taken for granted are very recent (as in 100-200 years at most). Nil Einne (talk) 07:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

There's also the American naming pattern that many here may take for granted, but is actually quite alien to, I suppose, much of the rest of the world. I mean the first name – middle initial – surname pattern, where the middle initial in theory stands for a second given name (but not always, sometimes it's really just a bare letter, as in Harry S. Truman), but the full middle name is rarely used. — Kpalion^(talk) 09:28, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Shirley this "American naming system" off whych thou speakst comes only from the Census Bureau, which expects a middle name (initial only, whether it exist or not) and a last name of at least two letters, or at least a "vowel" and "consonant", explaining the names Sandra Oh <O and the surname Eng from the better Ng. μηδείς (talk) 03:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

And I'd just like to add that between it being just one character long, and how often Americans tend—both in written and spoken form—to confuse O with zero, the (Korean) family name O has become the most-hated among members of the ASPCC*.

*American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Computers  :)

Pine (talk) 10:59, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

As an American not widely known by his first given name, I have had occasion to notice that it's not only the Census Bureau. —Tamfang (talk) 07:14, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I've struck out the bit about "unlike most others", as it was just an aside, but one that has been way too productive in meandering far from the point of my question. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:28, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

@JackofOz: again I assume total good faith, but if you have strucken sumpin' 3 days after it was done posted, and most of the followin's in response, you should also resign the strikening for clearitude's sake. (By resign I mean to WP:SIGN again, not quit.) μηδείς (talk) 03:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Done. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:00, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks to all who piped up, the best and most relevant piper being {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.41.3. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 15:30, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Resolved