Comments on: Personal names around the world 1

By: site admin

site admin — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 07:58:44 +0000

@Jonathan: Yes, if you are going to ask for a name in two parts, I suggest you call those family and given, rather than first and last. But I’m also trying to point out, of course, that people’s names in many parts of the world don’t easily fit into two parts, and if they do, don’t necessarily equate to family and given names.

By: Jonathan O'Donnell

Jonathan O'Donnell — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:19:33 +0000

Thanks for the article. Very timely. You recommend not using “First name” and “Last name” as labels, and you seem to use “Given name” and “Family name” as a preference. Is this what you would recommend generally?

(Not recommend in a W3C way, of course, but in an ordinary everyday ‘perfect enough’ way?)

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:46:15 +0000

Here’s a question…

For backends and administration of sites it can be VERY useful to give the ability to sort by first or last name. What workarounds are there in this case?

If we use just a Full Name field the sorting could be pretty useless.

By: AJ

AJ — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:57:50 +0000

Very interesting and informative. This should be another design aspect to be considered when designing a new application. Especially when the whole world is your audience and user..

By: diogo

diogo — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:24:41 +0000

This gets even more complicated on cultures that don’t enforce the strict use of the family name (Brazillian Portuguese).

for example:
João Andrade de Souza – here you have what can be called one last name: “Andrade de Souza” is a composite name, that is treated as one.

However, the son of “João Andrade de Souza” and “Maria Aquino dos Santos” can be “Diego Andrade dos Santos” or “Diego Aquino de Souza”. This way you do not know for sure which one is the fathers name and which is the mother’s name (in Brazil most people share both, different from China, for instance).

In such situation you are better off either writing it as the full last name (“Andrade dos Santos” or “Aquino de Souza”) or separating connective words: “Mr. Andrade dos Santos” – full last name, or “Mr. Andrade” or even “Mr. dos Santos”.

By: Jean-Michel Lacroix

Jean-Michel Lacroix — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:51:39 +0000

Here is another real world example: VISA always call me Jean even tough my full first name is Jean-Michel. In french, Michel is not a middle name and it is never initialed. Jean-Michel is a compound name, as a lot of people have in Quebec. We’re a Canadian province yet we have our own differences that VISA Canada can’t understand!

This is a very good and informative post, thanks!

By: site admin

site admin — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:17:57 +0000

@Jon: Yes. I simplified that example slightly, so that the detail didn’t obscure the main point. Thanks for the explanation. For all the names, there are more details in the Wikipedia links I provided.

By: Jon Stefansson

Jon Stefansson — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:53:23 +0000

Hi, a small correction on Icelandic names:

They do not end with -sson or -sdóttir, but rather -son or -dóttir (e. -son or -daughter). The extra s you added comes from the name of the father.

Björk’s father’s name is Guðmundur, which changes to Guðmunds according to our grammar rules and then dóttir is added.

It is, however, most common for names to end with an s when used in this context. But there are exceptions. A perfectly valid name is e.g. Björk Arnardóttir (just like Guðmundur->Guðmunds, her fathers name is Örn->Arnar).

(For fun: The name can be said as ‘Björk, daughter of Guðmundur’, which is in Icelandic said ‘Björk, dóttir Guðmunds’ – hence Björk Guðmundsdóttir).

By: Julian

Julian — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:48:55 +0000

May I add that site developers should also consider address formats? For those of us outside the USA, it is frustrating when a form has a mandatory field for ZIP code, even if the country selected is, say, Hong Kong, which has no such codes. You can try to enter “0000″ or soemthing similar, but some forms are “smart” and require the correct US format. By this stage I have generally given up and taken my internet shopping elsewhere.

By: Kitty O'Meara

Kitty O'Meara — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 06:43:31 +0000

One problem that I experience is the frequent limitation of name characters to A to Z. My name has an apostrophe. My name is O’Meara…not Omeara. Most name forms do not allow me to spell my name using the apostrophe. An error is returned if I try. I understand that the spelling of my family name has changed over time but that is the way it is spelled today. I am surely not a linguist but I understand that O’ Ó Mc Mac Ne Ni Nic – along with various accent marks – are all part of Gaelic names. The names can include male and female forms of single and double patronymics as well as clan affiliations. Rarely do forms allow these full and preferred name representations.