The Japan Times said:
Source: The Japan Times
Pretty interesting. It seems like it would be quite difficult to have so many companies internationally adopt this.
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Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names overseas
- Thread starter Aurica
- Start date
Source: The Japan Times
Pretty interesting. It seems like it would be quite difficult to have so many companies internationally adopt this.
It's respectful but there's a good reason for our ordering system in English language press. We need to know his first name and last name. I have never met a Japanese or Chinese person who cared because they know the why of it and it's fixed in social situations anyway. What's weirder and more easily solved is calling countries stuff they don't say themselves like Japan and Germany.
The respectful address is "Shiggsy-Sama." Almost but not quite like that Weeaboo e3 journalist who invented the human cringe response in 2001.
Before that all we were able to achieve was mild embarrassment.
The respectful address is "Shiggsy-Sama." Almost but not quite like that Weeaboo e3 journalist who invented the human cringe response in 2001.
Before that all we were able to achieve was mild embarrassment.
In Japanese this will create more confusion. Typically you can tell the difference between the two names in Chinese or Korean so that it's harder to confuse them (the family name's the shorter of the two). In Japanese you wouldn't know unless you know other Japanese names, and even then I still get confused by historical figures like Minamoto Tametomo (in this case, family name first).
I think it's funny that Japanese first name phonetics are more easily understood by gender than a lot of other languages. I couldn't tell you what the rules aren't but I always understand it reflexively.
Yes, this is good and way overdue.
No it wouldn't? Since when has anyone had Minamoto as a given name? It may be confusing during a transition period for romanised names but once everybody writes it surname-first it should be fine.
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If you absorb a lot of Japanese news or media you can intuit some of them, like how the "moto" term is rarely used in first names, so that may be a bad example, but it would only be a bad example if you know enough Japanese to say that this sounds like a last name.
Whereas I don't know a thing about Chinese or Korean and could probably make a game go at guessing given from family name.
I always thought it should be this way. In Japan, they don't switch western names around. John Smith doesn't become Smith John - they're taught about first and last names and know it's done differently over there. No reason we can't do the same.
Should be gradually doable and it'd be nice to have some consistency between the East asian countries.
I think that's unreasonable. Given Name/Family Name order is a convention of English. When you write in Japanese you can put it the other way around.
This is like the "too literal fan translation" of Japanese diplomacy. Languages are meant to convey meaning and this will break it for most English speakers.
This is like the "too literal fan translation" of Japanese diplomacy. Languages are meant to convey meaning and this will break it for most English speakers.
OP
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On the other side, I don't like when Japanese people put my name in Western order when speaking Japanese. Super awkward, and it ensures that nobody knows what name to call me by. haha
Not until he actually makes the request!
It would take a century to have school kids learn the ordering for each country vs ten minutes once a decade of "hey if you're writing something formal to this person then remember to..."
we literally already do it for Chinese and Korean names...
Chinese President Xi Jinping
Xi is his family name.
Nope lol, the only reason I'm very familiar with some Japanese names and last names is that Peru has a large Japanese descendants' community, and I ended up studying in a Peruvian-Japanese elementary and high school for 7 years, so I studied with plenty of people who had Japanese names.
With that said, I believe it's only fair to allow this courtersy to Japan if it's already granted to Korea and China.
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What do you mean?
They definitely do switch the name order around to the Japanese way, unless you're a celebrity like Michael Jackson.
Also Kono is an odd fish. He's a rare pro immigration guy - but supports Abe in other nationalist stuff — but his dad is famous for defending "comfort women " and he's never rejected that speech.
Not sure what his intent here is beyond it being reasonable but hard to implement because it's become a convention in a way that Korean didn't.
Not sure what his intent here is beyond it being reasonable but hard to implement because it's become a convention in a way that Korean didn't.
Don't see the problem. Already do it for other countries, plus it's their request so what's really the point in disrespecting that?
Imo, I don't think we should.
How do we figure out whether a Korean American wants it forwards or backwards? Do they want it the Korean style or do they want it the American style since they are American? Is it based on where their culture is originally from or where they live now? If it's based on where you live now, when Dave Smith moves to Japan does he become Smith Dave in our media?
We shouldn't have to figure out. The ordering rules are a matter of language syntax (in our case, English) and not place of cultural origin or place of residence.
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Brad Pitt is so famous that they'd say "Brad Pitt" but if they wrote something formal in Japanese about him they might flip it. I think it's inconsistent for celebrities vs regular folks. They definitely sometimes reverse my name in written docs- correctly per Japanese.
It's not disrespectful at all. It's a simple convention. If Japan insists on it and we ignore it then eventually that becomes disrespectful but it isn't in etiquette or diplomacy.
The easy hybrid using a comma would help:
Abe, Shinzō.
The same device is used in English too.
Johnson, Samuel.
I think learning a little bit about other countries naming conventions would be nice in a world that's slowly becoming more inter-connected. We're talking just three countries at the moment where many people are already familiar with it - school is just one site of learning after all.
I'm wondering because wouldn't you just hope to write it the way best understood by your audience? I'd assume if they write most American names flipped for ease of understanding, we would continue to flip their names for ease of understanding. I legitimately don't know if Taro Kono(Yoko Taro?) is flipped or not, and I could see someone mistaking Pitt for a first name if they were equally unfamilar with American names(in a less famous example).
For whatever reason, in Japan at least, it's been custom for the longest time to write one's name in [first name] [last name] order when using the Latin alphabet. It would take a momentous effort to change things now, even domestically.
In Hungary they put foreign names in the order they are in that country. So Brad Pitt would still be Brad Pitt there, but Hungarian names are put surname name, given name.
This has always confused me so much. So, for example, in Japan, he'd write his name as Miyamoto Shigeru, but go by Shigeru (first name) in conversation? And with this new proposition, Giant Bomb would in turn refer to him as Miyamoto Shigeru?
Not trying to sound flippant, I'm genuinely asking. It's always confused me, but I can be kind of dense at times.
Not trying to sound flippant, I'm genuinely asking. It's always confused me, but I can be kind of dense at times.
First names alone aren't really used all that often outside of close friends and family in Japan. There are exceptions, though, for example in workplaces where multiple people on a team have the same last name, sometimes one or more of them will go by their first name within the company, etc.
I mean I don't call him anything because I'm not Chinese and I don't know him. I guess I just never thought about the whole last-name-first/first-name-last aspect of Asian names when it came to discussing the President of China.