Re: Draft for review: Personal names around the world

replies inline.

(11/09/02 14:09), Richard Ishida wrote:
>> * In general, I think mentioning generational name in the "Different
>> order of parts" section is a bit complex and unnecessary. As you
>> mentioned, not everyone has a generational name these days and even if "
>> 毛泽东" has a generational part, I still expect the given name of "毛泽
>> 东" to be "泽东", not "东" (or at least in a database that has a "given
>> name" field, this is more likely to be "泽东" for reasons you mentioned
>> later in the same section). This also matches what is described in
>> Wikipedia[1], although we might be wrong in some definition of "given
>> name".
>>
>> Anyway, my point is that I haven't seen any system, in Chinese or in
>> English, that asks for or makes use of generational names, and hence it
>> might be easier for the reader to just learn "毛泽东" as the family name
>> "毛" + the given name "泽东".  The mention of "generational name" could
>> be moved into the wiki for cultural interest.
> 
> The generational name is introduced in the context of describing the
> anatomy of Mao Tse Tung's name, but it does say later that "those who do
> have one expect it to be used together with their given name. Thus, if
> you are on familiar terms with someone called 毛泽东, you would normally
> refer to them using 泽东 (Ze Dong), not just 东 (Dong).", which I think
> actually covers your point.

The only point here is to help readers of this article make the right
decision to store "泽东" in the givenName field of a database (in any
normal circumstances). I am concerned that readers won't reach this
conclusion after reading the sentences mentioned and hence my suggestion
in [1].

I am ignorant enough to not have heard of this anatomy. I mean, of
course I know generational name but I would expect the name of 毛泽东 to
be the family name 毛 + the given name 泽东 and 泽 being the
generational name. That is, the generational name is part of the given
name. Ambrose(CCed) doesn't seem to agree that the given name of 毛泽东
is 东 either so I suspect we have the same impression here.

Anyway, having a debate on the right definition of given name doesn't
help much here as the whole point is to help the readers.

The other point for removing the mention of generational name is that,
although I don't know how often patronymic names are used in Iceland,
the use of generational names among Chinese people is less than 50%
(since normally female names don't have generational part), and hence it
might not be a good idea to go into details of a minor naming practice
here. (Ambrose probably has different opinions here)

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-international/2011JulSep/0083


Cheers,
Kenny

Received on Friday, 2 September 2011 07:00:22 UTC