It’s a little bit of a complicated issue. On the one hand, my great-grandfather gave up using a patronym to be an American. That’s a totally normal thing, and it’s weird to complain about it. In Japan, they were often confused about which of my names was personal and which was for my family, and they never quite figured out the deal with my middle name / initial. Cultures are different, and you can’t expect everyone in one country to know everything about another.

On the other hand, some people make a big show out of not knowing how to pronounce common Indian names, and that strikes me as silly/microaggressive. Hindi is spelled phonetically in English, so it’s not very hard.

On the third hand though, Chinese names are often spelled with a Romanization that wasn’t designed for use by English speakers, so of course they can’t do it. If you want them to not mangle your name, use the Yale Romanization.

I think people want there to be a simple answer like “everyone just change your name to John Smith” or “if they can’t pronounce Xi Jinping, they’re racists” but simple answers don’t really apply. We’re all just going to muddle through the best we can.

My friend, in America, is named Alok. When he started school the teacher said “That’s not a name, in my class your name is Alex.”

You know that not everyone is relating to you with good intentions, right? And that their convenience isn’t the most important thing in the world?

How far does your magnanimity extend? Can people just say “hey you, shithead” and you think that shouldn’t affect the interaction?

I agree to some extent. There's definitely weirdos that purposefully use names and pronoun mangling to antagonize or ostracize someone, or put in literally no effort to respect someone. I've definitely heard/seen "your name's too hard, I'll just call you $some_arbitrary_name" like an adopted animal or something and that always struck me as a dick move.

My name is Fred. Oddly, despite being a not uncommon name in the English speaking world, English speakers never get it. They hear and call me Brett, Brad, Frank, Greg... anything but Fred. And it's not because I have a strong uncommon accent or anything, my accent is just a generic North American accent, most people think I'm Canadian.

Like you I've also kind of given up and usually just roll with it.

I do see where you're coming from re not getting offended but not sure I agree completely with that - I do think there's room for improvement or at least making an effort with unfamiliar names. (but demanding perfection is likewise rude)

> your pronoun if you didn't make it obvious by your attire

This is still a minefield, especially among teenagers and very young adults who latch on to any opportunity to assert their individuality. I have met more than one man who wears female clothing and cosmetics and adopts female mannerisms, yet still insists that he is non-binary or a “non-binary male” and so his pronouns will be “he” or “they”, and you might get chewed out for using the wrong pronoun.

> So I don't get the current trend where everyone is your majesty and god forbid someone mangles your name

The advice that people react well if you pronounce their name correctly has been widespread since, at the very least, Dale Carnegie's 1936 "How to Win Friends and Influence People" so not really a recent trend.

And of course in some situations other people's treatment of your name can have a major impact on your career - for example, if academics reference papers as "FamilyName et. al. (year)" it might benefit your career a great deal if they identify your family name correctly.

I agree that widespread chosen pronouns are a recent trend, though.

It's a "pick your battles" kinda thing, you're not gonna get someone at Starbucks write your name down properly if it isn't something they can easily hear over the murmur of a crowd.

That said, if I were in that situation I would double down on it in anything formal - documents, graduation ceremonies, weddings, lawsuits, etc.

As someone with a name that is hard (impossible?) for native English speakers to pronounce, I take the same pragmatic approach as you do with one caveat. I do not mind people mispronouncing or misspelling my name as long as they at least try. I answer to any of the common mispronunciations or misspellings but would bristle if someone decided to ignore my name altogether and decide to make up a name for me.

My thinking is this is about respect and courtesy. I understand the linguistic limitations of living in a multicultural world but there is no similar limitation on our ability to try and meet other people at least some of the way.

My wife is from Thailand so I spend a lot of time in Thailand and with Thai people. My name is Robert which is difficult for Thai people to say. So I got by Bob with Thais despite never going by it in any other context. I don’t expect Thai people to be able to make sounds (R’s in particular) that aren’t commonly used in their language. (There is an R sound in Thai, but it has a roll, and is commonly pronounced as an L sound regardless)

Likewise we don’t expect English speakers (or Chinese Spanish French German or any other language) to be able to say her Pali name. (In Thailand they use Pali, the dead language used in the Buddhist canon, for names) She also has a Thai language nickname as all Thais do, but it’s challenging and so she decided to adopt a simpler English name among native English speakers upon arrival.

I think it’s laudable to try to pronounce names in every language across all of humanity with alacrity, but it’s unreasonable to expect everyone can and will. Certainly in my travels there’s a great deal less sensitivity to other languages and cultures than we seem to expect in the US and to some extent in parts of Europe. It’s an unreasonable standard. However in some contexts, particularly roles of trust and respect, you should always ask and try, and I think in general it’s a polite human thing to do.

But any expectation of success and remembering is completely unreasonable. In the first case, the brain just isn’t adapted to the sounds no matter how much they respect you and your culture. The second case, it’s like memorizing random nonsense words - it’s not nonsense to you, but to the person who grew up in a totally different culture and language, it certainly is. That’s not disrespectful, that’s a simple fact of reality. IMO the disrespectful thing is to be upset with humans being human - the attempt is the act of respect - anything beyond that is a measure of some intellectual capability that not everyone has.

I had a friend from Singapore whose name was Muk (pronounced muck).

That confused everyone who were sure they heard him wrong, so he went by Mark instead.

Seemed very sensible and made introductions easy.

I have a european name that is difficult to pronounce for americans (even me!), and I adopted the same approach. It's mildly annoying, because my name as pronounced by americans has a lot of connotations I don't necessarily love, but I know who folks mean

coffee shops are impossible though. I have a coffee shop name, because they are even more wildly out of pocket with what they hear my name is than the median conversation

Few in US pronounce my name as it was originally, and I was born there. The final joke is when I moved to a country where it is pronounced right, people get confused because I don't have a matronym (slightly shameful not to) and my patronym (Bueno) sounds outright fake.

I've learned to roll with it using a joke that my cousin has it worse because her last name is "Excuseme".

I don’t see any problem with what you choose to do.

Neither do I see a problem with someone who would want their name to be pronounced correctly.

I admire your pragmatism. I think it's quite neat how your chosen name reflects that aspect of your self, too.

I have a common western given name, but pronunciation varies wildly across Europe (where the name's common) based on the language's phonetics. It's perfectly fine.

Nothing wrong with providing an approximate pronunciation of your name with sounds available in the local language. It's reasonable and respectful for the person opposite you to make an effort along those lines. It's unreasonable for him to learn new sounds! My girlfriend has a name that I still can't pronounce like in her language but I and others approximate and that's good enough. No one expects her to adopt a local name, no one.

It's becoming kinda like a shibboleth to me. Most people can't spell my name and it's ok but if you can, you earn my favor.

> The guidance on Japanese names is a bit simplistic

The title of the page is a "basic guide". Not a "comprehensive guide".

And they note that "the person’s preference is the most important thing to consider", which already covers your "but I have name cards in a different format" objection.

Japanese people sometimes use the French-like convention of capitalizing the family name (e.g., "Hayao MIYAZAKI", not that he actually does this) so you can tell which is which without knowing a priori what order the named person prefers to write their name in English.

I don't think this is surprising. Many Chinese do so as well because they are educated that westerners put the first name first, so they follow the Western convention for English names.

Edit: cellphone keypad

Given names are only used in Japan in informal settings between people you know well, like friends and family. Work, school, and general life would use surname + honorific. The honorific is not optional.

So when it's written in a English, write it English style? That's actually very reasonable, as long as Japanese publications write western names in the Japanese order.

I think it's okay. Japanese names written in latin alphabet is just the trade name anyway, a transcription. "The real" name, subjectively, is always in Japanese.

Thank you for the pointer!

I would also love to read, “cultural considerations in visiting Norman, Oklahoma” written for the South Asian audience. Or “how to manage your US born workers” for upper class Asians. “Getting along in the US suburbs for the shy Indian tech geek.”

To the extent these things exist, they are not easily accessible to English only US born people. Actually, I have just found my next series of Chat GPT questions.

That said, the original article was interesting and more details than I had picked up inductively over the years.

> Or who are known by their last name

English males calling each other by their family name (or hereditary place name) is a long-standing public school (US: private school) tradition. Upper middle class and above.

Long ago, if brothers attended the school at the same time, the suffixes "major" or "minor" were appended if clarification was needed: Jones major, Jones minor. Three brothers, the third was minimus. Don't know if this still happens.

And let's not even start on more archaic / aristocratic or educational titles, like "master", "lord", "doctor" and "sir". Although it's great to be able to double down on those in some situations, like how women with doctorates are still often refered to as "miss" / "mrs" instead of "doctor".

Since you know more about this subject, I have a question on this topic that I've wondered for over two decades.

In 2001, I did a month long exchange program to Thailand. A group of eight Canadians stayed with eight Thais, and the year before they stayed with us. Incredible program.

All the Thais, as you mention, had nicknames. But many of the nicknames were English words that weren't really used as names in the West. I lived with a guy named 'Knight'. Another guy was 'Farm'.

Were these names Anglicized versions of Thai nicknames? Or were the actual nicknames just sometimes pulled at random from an English dictionary?

Fun fact: the Japanese government insists that foreigners use the name they have in their passport in official documents. That includes the middle name. My middle name has thus crept in all over the place. I've barely ever used it in my home country, but now have to use it everywhere (I live in Japan). Anyways, more relevant to OP, as a result, sometimes I'm called by my middle name, as if it were my last name (because the order is last first middle and they must assume that the literal last is the last name...)

As a westerner, when Japanese names are written out, I like having the family name capitalized. That way, you can write YAMADA Koji or Koji YAMADA, and I'll know what to call you.

I have a western name and have been learning Japanese. I also want to be respectful and considerate of the customs, legal documents, and software used in other countries.

I thought my family name with an honorific should be first when in Japan, but last night I saw some advice saying that people with western style names should use the given name first when speaking there. (That didn't quite sound "fair" for all the Japanese people use their given name first in western contexts.) Now I suspect the advice was out of date, but overall I agree that knowing when to go back and forth can be a point of confusion, especially with differing explanations available online.

Someething similar to your “fake western names” has been a feature of Brazilian culture going at least back to the early 20th-century. A segment of Brazilians will give a child a name ending in “-son”,[0] even if it is invented out of whole cloth, just because an English sounding name sounds prestigious. A quick online search shows people disparaging this as a practice of the lower classes, but over the decades as some families have grown wealthier, this is widely found among the middle class, too.

[0] https://portuguese.stackexchange.com/questions/8634/what-is-...

Guessing these weren't native Singaporeans (where English is an official language and British influence is still obvious)?

There are also names like Leslie and Ashley that are more associated with women in the US, but have historically been gender-neutral.

> so instead they pick two names and combine them, or one name and rearrange the letters. So you get folks named Danold, Stevid and so on

This is also a great tip for generating names in fantasy or sci-fi settings.

It's unfortunate that you refer to them as "LAST" and "FIRST" when the whole point of the exercise is to decouple ordering from naming.

"Christian name" and "surname" is closer to what you want, but problematic for different reasons.

It should be "Western-given", "Chinese-given", "Chinese-family".

I see the dual-first-name thing a lot with consultants, but within the West I think it's typically Western-first, Chinese-first, Chinese-last, isn't it? Which is extra confusing.

Right, here in Singapore you might see Andrea Tan Zixuan

I think most online forms I encounter these days have a single name field, though government forms are usually the exception. Separate first and last name fields was definitely very common 10-20 years ago but web devs seem to have learned since then.

Initials also include Sh. which means Shriman or Shri for males and Smt. which mean Shrimati

“Ch.” could be short for “Choudhary,” a title.

Or for “Chiranjeevi,” usually used on wedding cards before the groom’s name.

Yes, somewhere around 1966, ethnic Chinese living in Indonesia where pressured/forced to adopt an Indonesian-sounding name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Indonesian_surname#196...

Wow! That was a heavy burden for those parents. Imagine knowing that a misstep in the naming of your child would cause the death of many people.

FWIW, family name is almost one syllable (Li, Yang, Wu, etc.)

Though that only helps a little because loads of given names are also one syllable.

Fun Fact: 300,000 people have the name "Zhang Wei" [1]

[1] https://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-01/20/c_138721082.htm

You could look up the n most common Japanese family names (myoji ,名字). You probably would get a list like Yamaha, Suzuki, Watanabe, Tanaka, etc. Of course, this wouldn't cover every case, but it might help. 頑張ってください！

The issue is that the convention in many languages is that the name order depends on the origin of the name in question. In Japanese for example, native Japanese names are always spoken in Family-Given order but English names are always spoken Given-Family. So then the problem is now everyone must become an expert in discerning the origin of names just so they can use the correct order.

Something I've seen genealogists do, as well as some French-speaking Lebanese, and maybe others that I haven't noticed or encountered, is to put the surname in all caps to disambiguate e.g. 'Harrison Paul JEFFERSON'

In France both orders are used, depending on context.

in Europe: Hungarian + Basque ??

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_names

"Hungarian is one of the few national languages in Europe to use the Eastern name order, like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and some Basque nationalists."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_name#Eastern_name_ord...

It's not unheard of in the UK either on official documents to put last name first, for example a lot of correspondance from banks etc would be "to mr lastname firstname"

It's often the case that people will sign off with a form of their name that they're happy to be addressed by.

- Andrew

And they make little sense when someone has two family names (father and mother), because then you have to call them "first last name" and "second last name".

Was looking for this comment. This guide is too simplistic. It went in some detail on variation of Indian names and I was expecting the same for Pakistan. Mine was TITLE Muhammad NAME. Some in family also have TITLE at the end of name.

First name, last name OR given name, family name on forms never make sense to me.

This is just my gut feeling, but it smells like someone might be wanting to purge invalid Japanese names from an existing database of Asians, and it's not working out at all.

This is common in the American southeast too.

Brazil does this too

People never exclusively used family names in the western world, at least not the way you imagine.

That doesn’t work if the culture in question doesn’t use family names. For instance Malays use their given name followed by their father’s given name. Would you really refer to somebody as “Mr [their father’s given name]”?

By last name, you mean family name, right?

In Indonesia we always use an honorific followed by a person's preferred name. Very simple!

I wouldn't care for that. I'm tired of being "ma'amed" to death.

I'm a native Chicagoan, currently living in Texas. The US southern of calling one's (elders?) Miss <Firstname>/Mr <Firstname> confuses me, since I don't know the conventions....

Agree, I do that all the time, I also feel it is a little more respectful to call someone by their family name rather than just name. Additionally, it’s better in terms of privacy in the internet, less phishing and social engineering attacks.

Japanese first/last names are largely separate, so it would be pretty safe to just find someone on wikipedia who shares either name and use them as a guide.

> there’s definitely other kinds of Chinese names too, like Tibetan and Uyghur.

Xi has a solution for those irregularities.

> A bit like programming: url.hostname, or hostname url.

What do you mean? A URL contains its hostname.

As a really rough rule of thumb, in both Japanese and South Korean cultures, it would be fairly improper to address or refer to a "stranger" or any non-close-friend [1] by their given name. A jersey nameplate would absolutely constitute a stranger/formal context, so family name would be expected here. Even if you did not know that pretty universally, jersey nameplates/tags (and nameplates writ large) with only one name will be the family name.

1 - "stranger/non-close-friend" here means someone who you aren't already a) quite familiar with and b) in the age bracket / position in hierarchy c) in an informal friendly context. Any teacher, boss, employee, acquaintance, professional, etc, it'll be family name. Classmates, close friends, family members will usually use given name (in informal context - code switching).

As an amusing aside, this is a bit of an in-joke in the anime Mushoku Tensei (Jobless Reincarnation), where the main character is often using surnames and the formal or even Keigo register with his rough-and-tumble party mates and they are like "yo why are you so formal?".

But also, Park and Moon are common Korean family names. Because like the near-majority of South Koreans have the Kim surname, you'll often see initials like "H S KIM"

How I approached this question:

Googled pictures of the Japanese National baseball team, and then googled their wikipedia, noted that the english wikipedia article lists their names in western naming order (first first, family second). Matched some of the players names to the names on their jerseys in the photos.

They have names on their jerseys like "Nakano" (#7) and "Okamoto" (#25) and "Nakamura" (#27) - these are their family names.