Current Shareware 1994 January/SHAR194.ISO/geneolog/roots3.zip/NAMING.ART

Text File | 1993-07-20 | 15KB | 284 lines

                 Non-Western Name Conventions

       A non-authoritative guide to name conventions to
     assist network users in addressing each other and for
   understanding names used in network accessible databases
  offered throughout the world with Gophers and WAIS sources

                              by

                           T.W.Tan
                  Department of Biochemistry

                             and

                        Peter K.W. Tan
         Department of English Language and Literature

               National University of Singapore

                        -------------

               original 12 Apr 1993 by T.W.Tan
           additions 16 Apr 93; 20 Apr 93; 1 May 93



The way we are addressed is one of the more personal and often sensitive
things which we wish others would get right the first time.  We mean our
names: we wish it not to be misunderstood, misspelt, mispronounced or
misused by others, if we could help it.

Among many cultures in non-Western nations, the more commonly known name
convention of "given name" followed by "surname" is not necessarily
adopted.  In order to prevent embarrassment, faux pas or any problems, we
have written this short article to accompany this BioGopher.  If there are
any inaccuracies particularly those detected by the experts in name
convention of other cultures, we would appreciate it if you could inform us
so that we can make the appropriate revisions.

Names adopted by people of Western nations generally come in two major
parts, the given name, which comes first, alternatively known as the first
name, the personal name or the Christian name, and the last name or the
surname or the family name.  Famous examples would be those of national
leaders such as Bill (given name) Clinton (family name) or John (given
name) Major (family name).  If there are additional names, these would be
placed in the middle, for example Martin Luther (middle name) King, after
the first name, and before the last name.  When abbreviated, it would
become "M.L.King" and so on.

Some middle names of married women, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, are
actually their family name, Rodham, with the husband's surname, Clinton,
added at the end.  This may become initialised to Hillary R. Clinton.
However, if a woman originally has a middle name, she may keep that, such
as Laura E. Quarterman where E. for Elizabeth, is the maiden middle name,
with the woman's family name entirely replaced by that of the husband, as
pointed out to us by John Quarterman of Texas Internet Consulting
([e-mail]).  Double-barrelled surnames, often used by English gentility,
are another variation.  For instance, when Jane Smith married John Jones,
they may agree to have their surnames fused; i.e. Jane Jones-Smith, and their
children henceforth known by the double surname Jones-Smith, or Smith-Jones.

Some peoples do not retain a surname or family name which is preserved from
generation to generation.  They refer to so-and-so son/daughter of
so-and-so.  Examples come from India, Israel, the Arab nations, Malaysia
and so on.  For instance, the Malay name Ibrahim bin Abdul Kadir would mean
Ibrahim, son of Abdul Kadir.  In Arab nations, "bin" would be rendered
"ibn", and in Israel, "bin" would be rendered "ben" and so on.

Names from the Indian subcontinent such as Subbiah Subramanian would be
Subramaniam, son of Subbiah, and correspondingly abbreviated as S.Subbiah,
under the Western convention.  However, according to N.Sathyanarayanan
([e-mail]), who is from Tamilnadu, a province in India, his
initials "N" refer to his father's name, "P.N.Narayanaswamy", and the
"P.N." initials of his father's name come from Pazhayanur, a place name,
and his grandfather's name respectively.  Hence this is quite the opposite
of the western convention in which one's initials are those of one's name.
So in the earlier example, S.Subbiah (western convention) would actually be
called S.Subramanian in his home country, Subramanian being his given name,
and "S." referring to his father's name.

David R. Micklem, of the Wellcome/CRC Institute in Cambridge, UK,
([e-mail]) tells us that some European names have this
pattern.  Irish and Scottish names such as Sean O'Keefe, Ryan O'Neal, Ronald
MacDonald, John McIntyre and so on, are names that include a reference to
the immediate parent or a place name.  Thus "O'Keefe" might mean "from
Keefe" or "son of Keefe", or "of Keefe" (says Keith Robison -
[e-mail]), just like the "Mac" or "Mc" in Scottish
names.  In some Germanic languages, "van der" of "Peter van der Zee" would
refer to "Peter from the Sea".  In the same way, "von" or "van" in say,
"Emil von Kruppen" or "Hans van Houten" would have similar meanings, i.e.
"from", just as the Latin-based languages have the equivalent in "de la" as
in "Louis de la Maza".  Many of these have become permanent family names or
full-fledged surnames which do not change from generation to generation.
Reference to people with such names for instance, would be "Professor van
der Ley", "Mr van Houten" or "Dr van der Zee" or "Dr von Braun".  Keith
Robison also notes that in alphabetical listings, say in dictionaries or in
telephone books, "Mac", "Mc" and "O" are significant, whereas the rest
which are in lower case are not.  Thus, "van der Waals" would be listed under
"W".  Sometimes, as John Quarterman ([e-mail]) of Texas Internet
Consulting points out, it depends on the person's wishes, for instance,
Frank da Cruz may insist on being listed under "D".

Nico van Belzen, Dept of Pathology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The
Netherlands ([e-mail]) informs us that in Dutch, it is not
uncommon to address Dr van Houten with capitalised "v", as in "Dr Van
Houten" unless it comes with the given name.  References in Dutch (and in
some English publications) would become (Houten, H.van and Ley, P.van der,
1993), for instance.  The reference (Van Houten, H. and Van der Ley, P.,
1993) also occurs.  John Quarterman also mentions the possibility that the
given name may be Van, as in Van Jacobson, being a Norse or Swedish name,
and not a German or Dutch one; and if it is Danish, it would probably be
rendered Jacobsen.

In some parts of Europe and in Latin America, some names come in three
parts, i.e. Derlene Silva Attili.  Derlene would be the given name, the
maternal name would be Silva and the paternal name would be Attili.  So
when abbreviated, it becomes D.S.Attili which would not pose too much of a
problem.

The Spanish convention of Jose Marti y Diaz, for instance, is similar:
given name, followed by maternal name and finally the paternal name. Many
prefer to leave off the paternal name, some the maternal name, or sort the
names under one or the other, so John Quarterman tells us.  The Slavic
convention, too, is similar.  For Olga Aleksandrovna Romanov, the middle
name refers to her mother, Aleksandra.  However, for Erik Aleksandrovich
Romanov, the middle name refers to his father, Aleksander, but in familiar
speech or writing, the family name Romanov may find itself omitted.

The French convention of writing names is also worthy of note.  French
pupils are taught always to write their surnames in capital letters.  Very
often this takes first position, especially in official documents and
forms, so that a name like "Hercule Poirot" would appear officially "POIROT
Hercule".  This practice is naturally adopted by Francophone Africa.  John
Quarterman recounts an interesting story about names there.  There, too,
the written convention is to have the family name first, generally a short
one, like BAH (referring to a totemic plant or animal) and a longer
personal name, like Amadouh.  The official version of this name would be
"BAH Amadouh".  When he wrote his name in the English convention in
Francophone Africa, his personal name was mistaken for his surname, as he
got addressed as "Monsieur Jean".

With Eastern cultures, the name convention of having surnames in front
applies as well.  Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese names, etc. (but
incidentally, not Thai names) have their family names at the beginning, not
unlike the French convention or the Tamil convention, S.Subramanian,
mentioned earlier.  Here are some examples.

    Mao Tse Tung     - Mao is the surname/family name.
    Sun Yat Sen      - Sun is surname.
    Roh Tae Woh      - Korean president Roh - surname.
    Ho Chih Min      - Ho is surname.
    Lee Kuan Yew     - Lee is surname.
    Deng Xiaoping    - Deng is surname, Xiaoping is the Hanyu Pinyin
                       romanised equivalent of the Chinese characters.
    Sugawara Hideaki - Sugawara is the family name and Hideaki the given
                       name.

In their traditional characters, Chinese surnames are placed in front
followed by a generational name (i.e. siblings and cousins all have this same
name) and the given name - hence a three-part name.  For instance with my
name, Tan is the surname, Tin is the generational name in which my siblings
and my cousins all have, and Wee is the given name.  This is not always the
case, as many families do not adopt or adhere to the generational name in
which case, the middle name becomes the first part of the given name.  Some
names have the middle name entirely omitted, merely have a two-part name;
e.g., Li Peng.

When addressing a person by the given name, it is usual to refer to both
the generational/middle/first part of given name, followed by the last name
or given name, i.e. call me Tin Wee, or Tin-Wee, or Tse Tung, Tse-Tung or
Tsetung.  Notice that sometimes they are hyphenated.

An additional complication is the fact that the romanised words of Chinese
names come in several variations, depending on which phonetic system you
use.  So my name Tan Tin Wee is actually a transliteration of the Hokkien
pronunciation of the Chinese characters (which cannot be reproduced here in
ASCII!). The Hanyu Pinyin system would render these same characters Chen
Dingwei (or more accurately with the tonal indicators 0 to 4 Chen2
Ding4wei3).  So Deng Xiaoping would be the Hanyu Pinyin system's rendering
and Mao Tse Tung would become Mao Zedong.

An Asian in the west would often reverse the order of the name towards the
western convention, e.g. Tin-Wee Tan, and abbreviated T.W.Tan or T.-W.Tan.
This, however, should not be confused to names of certain married women who
may wish to adopt the English double-barrelled surname convention, for
instance, when A.B. Lim married Lee Suan Leng, Suan Leng may well have
decided to be addressed as Mrs Lim-Lee Suan Leng, or worse, Mrs Lim-Lee
Suan-Leng, or Mrs S.L.Lim-Lee, or Mrs A.B.Lim (after her husband's name)
and so on.  Again, it is basically impossible to know unless you already
know which is which.  Often, for fellow countrymen, we could make an
intelligent guess, but for others, just enquire discreetly or wait till
somebody else addresses her with no apparent adverse reaction and quickly
follow suit.

For the Japanese, it is common to see their names, usually in two parts,
already reversed in order, e.g. Hideaki Sugawara or H.Sugawara, but when
they speak their names to each other in Japanese, they would naturally
retain the original order of family name first followed by the given name,
i.e. Sugawara Hideaki.  Again, as with Chinese names, these romanised forms
(or Romaji) are based on the Japanese pronunciation of the Kanji (Chinese)
characters.  This will become clear when you study their business cards, on
one side the Japanese name in Kanji following the surname first convention,
and on the other side of the card, the Western surname last convention in
Romaji (i.e. the Latin/Roman alphabet).

One will therefore address Dr Sugawara as Sugawara-san, or Sugawara-sensei,
if he is a professor.  If you know him very well, you may call him
Hideaki.  John Quarterman adds that if you know some Japanese very well,
you may even add the "chan" honorific, appended to the given name, not the
surname and that reads more or less like calling someone Jane-girl or
John-boy, except not quite that bad.  Hence, it should never be used with
strangers, older people, grown men or in formal situations.

Even more complications arise when Asians adopt Western or Christian names,
whether they convert to Christianity or not. Take the following example:

    Harry Lee Kuan Yew - Harry is the Christian / Western name.
                         and people write their names this way
                         or sometimes Harry K.Y.Lee, or
                         more rarely especially while in the
                         west, Harry Kuan Yew Lee, or Harry Kuan-Yew Lee.

Sometimes to avoid confusion completely, the Chinese given names are
dropped entirely, e.g. Bruce Lee.

Therefore, be warned that some folks have reversed the order to adopt the
western convention of having surnames the last name in order to avoid (!)
confusion by westerners.

So when encountering an Asian name, check to find out which is the surname
or family name.  Address the person with the honorific followed by the
surname e.g. "Mr Lee", or "Dr Tan".  To friends, one might be known by the
given names; for example a greeting might be "Hello Tin Wee", or even "Wee"
or "Ah Wee" (only for Chinese names) to relatives, but of course, these are
minute details of passing interest.

To avoid confusion, some Asians have the family name underlined.
Alternatively, the family name is entirely capitalised, like in the French
convention.  Or else, look for the abbreviation, e.g. T.W.Tan would indicate
that Tan is my surname.

All this business about names and name convention is pretty complicated and
bewildering at times.  There are no simple guides or failsafe procedures.
Hopefully, we won't offend folks whose names we mangle too much, for after
all,

  What's in a name?  That which we call a rose
  By any other name would smell as sweet.

          Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, II.ii


-----------------------------------
For correspondence:

Dr Tan Tin Wee
Biocomputing Research and User Support (BRUS)
BioComputing Interest Group (BIG)
Department of Biochemistry
National University of Singapore
Kent Ridge
SINGAPORE 0511
Tel=(65)-7723678
Fax=(65)-7791453
Int=[e-mail]
Bit=[e-mail]


Acknowledgements
----------------

The following have written to us personally to confirm some of the above
information and to enlighten us on some other details which we have included
above, with the appropriate attribution.

John S. Quarterman, Texas Internet Consulting (TIC), Austin, Texas, USA.
Steve McKinty, Sun Microsystems ICNC, France
N.Sathyanarayanan ([e-mail])
David R. Micklem, Wellcome/CRC Institute, Cambridge, UK.
Nico van Belzen ([e-mail])

____________________
End of manuscript ([e-mail])