- Fair enough. Then why don't we try a Miji divide? Some figures might show difficulty but hopefully it works most of time. -- Taku 08:55, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)
Draft for a new name order
- The name order must be consistent within the same article.
- The title of articles of mordern figures should be the western order.
- Some figures who are well known for the name of their native order should be considred as case-by-case.
Any objection?
-- Taku 08:58, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)
- Sounds very sensible to me. Let's do it. -- Tlotoxl 05:47, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- Actually, I have an objection and a suggestion. First the objection: people are often confused about foreign name order. Here in Japan, people frequently confuse western names (eg: in my case they think my given name is my surname, and they call me "first-name san"). I also object to having two different naming conventions for Japanese people, one for modern and one for historical figures. It's just confusing, particularly given that famous people like Kurosawa Akira are frequently known by last-name-first-given-name-second order in the west.
I agree, however, that name order must be consistent within the same article. I propose that we include a "note" (perhaps this could become a standard {msg}?) at the top of any article containing all-Japanese names that says "All Japanese names in this article are given in the traditional Japanese order, with surname first and given name second." I can't think of any famous Japanese people who are known only by given-name-first-surname-second in English, but for those people a redirect page is simple enough to create. In the case of people with Japanese surnames and non-Japanese given names (and vice versa) I suggest giving the name in order of the person's native or main language, so that Mary Hayashi and Shinichiro Ramirez, for example, would not be given as Hayashi Mary and Ramirez Shinichiro. Exploding Boy 10:11, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
I don't really see how that improves things. Frankly, I think it makes it even more confusing. I think the draft listed above is the best option, using the Meiji era as a dividing line. Secondly, I've never heard anyone in the U.S. call the man who directed Rashomon, "Kurosawa Akira." Roger Ebert, for example, always says (and writes) "Akira Kurosawa."
Anyways, for anyone else watching this page, can we go ahead and assume that we are going with this draft for the time being? What is the next step? There are some articles I want to sort out. RadicalBender 14:56, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
In politics, science, and the contemporary arts, GN-FN is pretty much standard. It shouldn't be allowed to over-ride the basic convention that the commonly-used name should be preferred (otherwise you get silly stuff along the lines of Zedong Mao, to take a Chinese example). No doubt there will be some marginal cases, so in those add some boilerplate text.
Charles Matthews 15:58, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Name Order (again)
I took a year of Japanese at Harvard. I've also had lots of Japanese friends for the last 25 years. But I'm also a native English speaker.
I honor Japan and Japanese traditions, including the custom of putting one's family name (e.g., SUZUKI) first. The larger unit is emphasized. Even an employee would call himself Toyota no Miyazawi ("Toyota's Miyazawi" as opposed to "Jones from GM".
Americans and probably other English speakers are handicapped by not being able to distinguish common Japanes family names from given names (unless it's a car company! :-).
Whatever compromise or convention we all agree to, I do hope that it will be sensitive to all our concerns. Japanese rightfully expect their "natural" name order to be expected, especially for historical or other important figures. On the other hand, English speakers need to know which name is the family name.
I'm not really sure which is the family name in Kurosawa Akira but I can probably guess that Murata Toshiko is in the natural family-first order because I recognize Toshiko as a feminine given name.
Maybe we should get a little bit redundant and TELL readers which is the family name, when it's not immediately clear.
I humbly offer two of my country's smallest coins (2 cents). --Uncle Ed 18:40, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The problem is, setting ideas of respect and tradition aside, this is still the English Wikipedia. Any place (outside of historical contexts, which I'll address in a second) where there are lists of names that include those who are Japanese, the name is almost always listed as "givenname surname." Some examples: when Hideki Matsui comes up to bat, Fox lists his name as "Hideki Matsui," not the other way around. On the cover of the Kare Kano manga in English, the name is "Masami Tsuda" not "Tsuda Masami." Even with fictional characters in manga or anime, the characters are listed "givenname surname" in English (like "Yugi Mutou" or "Naru Narusegawa." On the R1 DVD cover of Rashomon, it says "Akira Kurosawa's" not "Kurosawa Akira's." Even Microsoft Encarta's article on the director says "Akira Kurosawa." Go to IMDb and the actors' names are listed the same, like "Ken Watanabe" or "Chiaki Kuriyama." Why is this done this way? Why aren't they bending over backwards to get the names in the proper order of that person's heritage like we're all trying to do apparently? Two reasons:
- It confuses people who don't understand the eastern concept of "surname givenname."
- Even when in the correct eastern order, people who understand the order are often still confused simply because it is uncertain which method is being used: "givenname surname" or "surname givenname" (hence, the earlier confusion about which is the surname in "Kurosawa Akira" - "Akira" is complicated enough since it can be given name or surname, male or female).
So, bearing that in mind, I maintain the original proposal (Draft for a new name order) is best. It eliminates all the confusion and keeps articles consistent with other naming conventions throughout Wikipedia (i.e., "givenname surname", Norah Jones, Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin, Moshe Dayan, Augusto Pinochet, etc., etc., etc.), regardless of the place of origin of the articles' focus.
The only exceptions would be important and/or historical figures where "surname givenname" is the more recognized version. I've even written an article like this before: Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi. The line would be drawn at the Meiji era, as has been suggested already, for that was the point in which "commoners" began to have two names. A [[mediawiki:{{{1}}}|message with id '{{{1}}}']] ([[mediawiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) could be created for these articles to indicate that the name uses the "surname givenname" format, which would be helpful for people to know (I know that for years I went around thinking the "Chiang" in "Chiang Kai-shek" was a given name). I would recommend NOT having a [[mediawiki:{{{1}}}|message with id '{{{1}}}']] ([[mediawiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) for both as that would likely dilute it's usefulness as a person would likely read the message once and not again for other articles (and might assume that the different naming order was, in fact, the same). Finally, if in doubt, a redirect from the "surname givenname" version to the "givenname surname" version would be used as well.
Anyways, these are my thoughts. I only bring this up because I've never seen the naming order be an issue elsewhere (for modern names in the mainstream, a la the examples I gave above). It always seems to be assumed that if it's written in English, it's following the English naming convention. I think we really need to look at the audience here and it makes sense to do what most everyone else does in this language to eliminate confusion.
Besides, I'm very tired of having to second-guess each and every article on a Japanese person because I don't know which name order is being used. I already have to do this everywhere on the internet and,\ frankly, I'm just sick of it.
And just so I'm clear on my recommendations (because I ramble a lot):
- "Givenname Surname" used in articles for any modern person or fictional character with a Japanese name.
- "Surname Givenname" used when it is the more recognized name or when the person or fictional character is prior to the Meiji Era.
- When in doubt, or if both orders are common, a redirect from "Surname Givenname" to "Givenname Surname" is used.
- A [[mediawiki:{{{1}}}|message with id '{{{1}}}']] ([[mediawiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) is created for names that wouldn't follow the English custom of "givenname surname" that says something to the effect of "This person's name is listed in the more traditional Japanese naming convention of 'surname/given name." or what have you. (I'm not terribly good at writing that sort of thing, but it would be along those lines.) A [[mediawiki:{{{1}}}|message with id '{{{1}}}']] ([[mediawiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) would not be created for the other way around.
RadicalBender 22:01, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC) (not a Japanese speaker, but learning)
- I still disagree.
- It only makes things more confusing to have a "cutoff line" (the Meiji period) where suddenly name order changes
- This is an encyclopaedia, ie a scholarly work; most serious scholars use the surname-first name order
- Redirect pages mean that people can search for Hayashi Fumiko or Fumiko Hayashi and end up in the same place
- There is no need for confusion anyway. A simple note (all names are given in the Japanese order...) at the top of the article eliminates all confusion about which is the surname
- Use of the surname in the article (Hayashi writes "....") would make it obvious anyway
- Surname Given name is the natural order of Japanese names. Seeing them in reverse order is as jarring for a Japanese speaker as seeing western names in the reverse order is for an English speaker ("Carrey Jim is a comedian who...")
Exploding Boy 02:17, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)
- I think we're going to eventually have to put this to a vote because, while I see your points, I don't think they outweigh the need to have them in an English order in an English Wikipedia. The thing is, excepting historical names, I see the order written in English as "givenname-surname" far more often than the Japanese order. Even the Prime Minister's English web site lists his name as "Junichiro Koizumi" not "Koizumi Junichiro", so I don't feel that we can use the jarring or respectful argument here. In fact, just doing a search on "Junichiro Koizumi" the only one on the top 10 that uses the Japanese order is Wikipedia. Not Japanese government web pages, not the Beeb, not Japan Today, not Pravda.
- Digging further, Wikipedia even says (on another naming conventions page) that "the titles should represent common usage." Now, again, not that I want to use Google as an exclusively-authoritative source in this debate, but the prime minister of Japan's name in western order returns 30 times the search results that using the eastern order does. Since Wikipedia itself says to use the more common title rather than the more "scholarly" one (necessarily), why are we trying to order them the opposite way? Scholarly or not, traditional or not, we should be using the name that's in more common parlance in English.
- RadicalBender 03:44, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I don't mean to be argumentative, but I just tried Googling Koizumi as well as Natsume Soseki, Abe Kobo and several other well-known Japanese figures in both name orders. I got virtually identical results for all of them (for Koizumi there were about 150 more results for given name-surname than for surname-given name).
- As a point of interest, I also did a brief search on the Japanese Wikipedia. All non-Asian names are listed in given name-surname order, while Japanese names are listed in surname-given name order.
- Exploding Boy 03:57, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)
- I understand. I don't mean to be argumentative either. :)
- Make sure to use quotes when searching on names (at least for the purposes of this discussion, I guess) because Google will basically pull more or less the same result set without them, just in a different order (see the two links in my last post). If you use quotes, you'll see there are usually smaller result sets for the Japanese name order. I tried the same thing with "Hayao Miyazaki" vs. "Miyazaki Hayao" and "Akira Kurosawa" vs. "Kurosawa Akira" and got more results from the western order (to varying degrees - somewhere between six to nine times the results) on each.
- I also did the same search on the Japanese Wikipedia earlier as well and you are correct, the kana (and English) is in the western order. However, I feel that is also chalked up to the "common name" argument from before. A Japanese history book would likely list the 40th American President's name as "Ronald Reagan" (or "Ronarudo Reigan" or whatever), so that's the common name that will be searched on in the Japanese Wikipedia. Flipping through Japanese movie posters, American actors' names are in the western order. Mission: Impossible says "Tom Cruise" (or the kana equivalent, actually). But, back to English, a poster for The Last Samurai says "Ken Watanabe," not "Watanabe Ken." So, the western order would be the one to search on for western names in Japanese or eastern names in English.
- I mean, we can go back and forth with anecdotal evidence and both of us would be correct in each instance, but it doesn't really solve anything. I think the "most common name" argument provided by Wikipedia should be weighed as the most important in this discussion.
- RadicalBender 04:13, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Cripes, this is getting complicated. According to Japanese names, "A modern 'Japanese name' (日本人名) consists of a family name, or surname, followed by a given name."
Of course, a little further down in the article, it also says "When written in Japanese characters, the family name always precedes the given name. As this differs from the ordering used in many other parts of the world, some, particularly academics, adopt the convention of writing the family name in upper case when the name is romanized: for example, Takuya MURATA or MURATA Takuya. Artists whos works are distributed in English outside of Japan often opt for a western ordering on the English editions of their works (e.g., Ryuichi Sakamoto, Shunji Iwai, Haruki Murakami)."
Exploding Boy 06:02, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)
I think that a complication that rises when using google to resolve which ordering is more common is that (unless someone knows a way around this), Google counts "Abe, Kobo" if you search for "Abe Kobo", so the number of FN-GN hits is sometimes greatly overstated.
-- Tlotoxl 06:15, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Wow, more to consider.
- Well, here's a thought. And, I'm tired right now, so if it sounds incoherent, please humor me for a bit. :)
- What if we went with this: the article name is what would most likely be commonly searched on (surname-givenname for older names, givenname-surname for modern names, whatever, we can address this in a bit, it's not the focus of my point for the moment). Underneath it we would have something like the following:
- Kajiura Yuki (梶浦 由記; Yuki KAJIURA) is a Japanese composer, etc., etc., etc.
- or possibly
- Yuki Kajiura (梶浦 由記; KAJIURA Yuki) is a Japanese composer, etc., etc., etc.
- or we could combine them
- Yuki KAJIURA (梶浦 由記) is a Japanese composer, etc., etc., etc.
- but this option seems a bit more confusing as to where the "Yuki Kajiura" link should be going.
- This idea, by the way, is lifted slightly from the ideas behind Chiang Kai-shek (which links to pinyin, explaining the transliteration scheme) and Judi Dench (which links to the page explaining the British nobility system).
- Wordy? Yeah, somewhat, but it's not too bad. But does it cover all of the assorted issues we've been having? We know which is first and which is last, we eliminate the need for a [[mediawiki:{{{1}}}|message with id '{{{1}}}']] ([[mediawiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) of some sort by linking it straightaway to the article to explain the ordering (or some other place, I'm using Japanese names as an example for the time being) and it could potentially use both the western and eastern naming conventions. I think with some work, we might be close. What are your thoughts?
- RadicalBender 06:24, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I like this idea. If nothing else, it would mean that people won't start changing articles in the future because they assume that the issue hasn't been dealt with. -- Tlotoxl 06:40, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The problem with using some of the examples above is that it's not always clear to someone who doesn't read Japanese which kanji refer to which name.
A related problem is that, while some of the arguments here have focused on the potential confusion of non-Japanese speakers who are unaware of the ordering of Japanese names, there are also non-Japanese speakers who are aware of the ordering of Japanese names. For someone who is unfamiliar with Japanese but who knows that Japanese names are SN-GN the name "Kajiura Yuki" and "Yuki Kajiura" have the potential to be equally confusing lacking explanation. I have personally had this problem doing research on Chinese topics.
I think that, more than anything else, it's important to provide a note at the top of articles that give Japanese names that explains in what order they are given. Redirect pages will take care of any other confusion.
Exploding Boy 06:42, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)
- But to someone who doesn't read Japanese, knowing which kanji is which probably won't make any difference to them.
- I think that the second of the three examples above can address most of the problems, albeit indirectly. The kanji would match the romaji listed to its right "KAJIURA Yuki" and since they are together in the parentheses (perhaps separated by a comma, not a semicolon), it would be assumed that the two would be treated as the original language and an exact translation. This isn't really different from...oh...let me find a good example...ah...Detective Conan. Note the kanji is in parens, followed by the romaji transliteration. It'd be the same for names: the kanji would be read as "Kajiura Yuki" which is exactly what the romaji following it says. The romaji then performs the double duty of directing the user to the correct page of explanation (probably this article page, the more I think about it).
- Would it be confusing to list the name in both orders? A little bit, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. The middle option would presume that the article name would be GN-SN format (as the bold text duplicates the article title) and then the reverse order is only to show the format in Japan, that's all.
- Another advantage I just thought of is that is also covers our bases for search terms. If someone searches for "Yuki Kajiura" or "Kajiura Yuki" the likelihood of landing on the Wikipedia page increases somewhat.
- I'm not completely opposed to the idea of using a [[mediawiki:{{{1}}}|message with id '{{{1}}}']] ([[mediawiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]), but if we can do that in some kind of link near the name (rather than cluttering up the page just to explain it on every single Japanese person's article, which I feel might detract from the article itself), I'd prefer to do it in a link instead of a [[mediawiki:{{{1}}}|message with id '{{{1}}}']] ([[mediawiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]).
- Either way, I'm going to think about this some more tomorrow (or later today, as it were) and see if I can't come up with something else. I would encourage everyone to do the same. If we can't come to something that nears a consensus tomorrow, we should probably format all this and put it to a vote for Wikipedia at large.
- RadicalBender 07:02, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I can think of at least a few reasons why someone who can't read kanji might need to know.
As for the Detective Conan thing, it's a bit different because the parenthesis serves mainly to transliterate meitantei.
One other thing: Wikipedia's list of Japanese people is SN-GN.
Anyway, more thought... Exploding Boy 07:09, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)
Well, the List of Japanese people is a bad example, because the list of names is all over the place. Some are SN-GN (Utada Hikaru), others are GN-SN (Yoko Ono), some GN-SN point to SN-GN articles (Nobuo Uematsu) and some SN-GN point to GN-SN articles that redirect to SN-GN articles (Tojo Hideki)!! Ack! It keeps getting worse and worse! :)
At the very least, I think it illustrates some problems with everything so far. I hadn't thought about Yoko Ono before, but almost no one is going to think of her as "Ono Yoko," I would imagine.
OK, modified proposal with three examples:
- Ayumi Hamasaki (Name: 浜崎 あゆみ, HAMASAKI Ayumi) (b. October 2, 1978) is a Japanese singer, etc., etc., etc.
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (Name: 徳川 家康, TOKUGAWA Ieyasu) (January 30, 1543 - June 1, 1616) was the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, etc., etc., etc.
Let me first say, that this just incorporates some different ideas I had and I haven't determined just yet whether or not even I would want to see it this way, but let me explain my thought process first.
You brought up two valid objections that I tried to address here.
- "For someone who is unfamiliar with Japanese but who knows that Japanese names are SN-GN the name "Kajiura Yuki" and "Yuki Kajiura" have the potential to be equally confusing lacking explanation."
- "The problem with using some of the examples above is that it's not always clear to someone who doesn't read Japanese which kanji refer to which name."
On the matter of the first problem, making the second name a link (in my initial example) never explained just where that link is supposed to go (or what the purpose of the second name was). There was no context for what that link was supposed to do or where it was supposed to take you. So, I added the word "Name" which links to this article page that would explain exactly what the naming convention for the articles is.
Problems: It does make the first part of the article even longer, but only slightly. Secondly, "Name" seems like an odd word to put there. I also tried "Japanese", "Naming Convention" and some other words, but they were even longer and felt out of place. I also considered a link to Hepburn to explain the second romaji transliteration (i.e., "Hepburn: KAJIURA Yuki"), but I don't actually know the Hepburn transliteration system that well and didn't feel comfortable labeling it as such.
- UPDATE: The more I think about it, the more I think using the word "Japanese" might not be so bad in the place of "Name." It would explain that everything in the parentheses caters more to how the Japanese would write and order the name.
On the matter of the second problem, underlining the surname in both cases could potentially tie the surnames together in the kanji and in the romaji.
Problems: It's non-standard to do that and the underline looks odd on the kanji. I'm not sure I even like it.
Honestly, though, I feel the second objection may not be such a big deal. For those who really need or want to know which kanji is which (of which, granted, there are probably a few people, but the bulk of people won't even give it a second thought), the link to the naming conventions page would explain that the kanji/kana is always written in the traditional Japanese order: SN-GN.
One other point, the more I think about it, the more I'm really not liking the idea of using some sort of [[mediawiki:{{{1}}}|message with id '{{{1}}}']] ([[mediawiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) to explain the naming convention, regardless of what is decided on. Reason being, it would have to be explained at the top of the article, and I think that would be jarring. I wouldn't want to see the top of each article looking like this:
- Japanese names are listed in the traditional Japanese order of Surname first, Given Name second.
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (Name: 徳川 家康, TOKUGAWA Ieyasu) (January 30, 1543 - June 1, 1616) was the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, etc., etc., etc.
I think that would be especially distracting because messages at the top are usually reserved for things like Votes for Deletion or Neutrality disputes, messages with more negative connotations.
Anyways, next steps. I'd like to hear comments on the above naming convention ideas. If you have any alterations or suggestions, please copy and paste the three examples and modify them accordingly. (I'm more of a visual person anyways.)
RadicalBender 19:58, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Ok, although I still think that if there was a {msg} at the top of the page it would be unnecessary to clarify further (as per your Tokugawa Ieyasu example just above), I think that your 3 examples further above are actually a pretty damn good compromise on the issue.
- I agree that underlining the kanji looks a little bit odd, but maybe that's just because you don't often see it in Japanese; actually, I think it solves a couple of problems quite neatly and probably adds to the clarity of the article (after all, if we're going to use kanji in articles we should probably make them as easy as possible to understand).
- I think Japanese is probably better than Name for clarity. Japanese name might be even better...? Hepburn probably wouldn't work, because Hepburn is just a system of romanization and has no rules on name order.
- Your idea would require the use of capitals for surnames which I thought had been decided against originally. I don't mind the idea actually.
- A couple of questions:
- Does this mean that all articles on Japanese people will be converted to GN-SN?
- Are we going to make redirect pages for SN-GN? What about for historical figures?
- I had something else to add but I've forgotten. Will post when it comes to me
- Exploding Boy 01:01, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
OK, yay, we're making progress. :)
I was thinking the underlined kanji looked weird too, but the more I look at it, it's not so bad. Part of it is I'm on Safari on Mac OS X and the underline touches the kanji (which doesn't happen for Roman characters) but looking at it on a Windows machine, it doesn't look quite so bad.
"Japanese name" for the link is probably a bit long, but I think "Japanese" will be fine. I actually lifted the idea after seeing the article on Josef Stalin that used the word "Russian" (although pointing to the page on Russian language) before the Cyrillic characters.
For your questions:
- Does this mean that all articles on Japanese people will be converted to GN-SN? - I think yes and no. Since I want to use "common names" I think it would still be best for GN-SN on modern names and SN-GN on historical names. I would propose that modern names be changed to the GN-SN format and historical names that are already predominantly SN-GN format be left alone.
- Are we going to make redirect pages for SN-GN? What about for historical figures? - Redirect pages for SN-GN on modern names would be created as needed.
- Any page currently using the modern SN-GN format would keep a redirect, of course.
- Pages currently using the modern GN-SN format could have a redirect placed on the SN-GN format page. This seems sensible to me. (Many already have them.)
- Historical figures would be left alone in SN-GN format. No redirects would likely be needed because no one is likely to enter in the name in reverse (no one will enter in "Ieyasu Tokugawa," for example, although, ironically, there is a redirect for that...).
Anyways, the examples again:
- On the page Yuki Kajiura:
- Yuki Kajiura (Japanese: 梶浦 由記, KAJIURA Yuki) is a Japanese composer, etc., etc., etc.
- A redirect page may be created for Kajiura Yuki that would point back to Yuki Kajiura.
- On the page Ayumi Hamasaki:
- Ayumi Hamasaki (Japanese: 浜崎 あゆみ, HAMASAKI Ayumi) (b. October 2, 1978) is a Japanese singer, etc., etc., etc.
- A redirect page is created for Hamasaki Ayumi that would point back to Ayumi Hamasaki.
- On the page Tokugawa Ieyasu:
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (Japanese: 徳川 家康, TOKUGAWA Ieyasu) (January 30, 1543 - June 1, 1616) was the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, etc., etc., etc.
- A redirect page is not needed for Ieyasu Tokugawa that would point back to Tokugawa Ieyasu (although one currently exists and it would be left alone).
I guess another final note would be on names without kanji or kana. For that, I think, it would look identical (including underline, so that it's not forgotten later), just without the kanji. So:
- On the page Azuma Kiyohiko:
- Azuma Kiyohiko (Japanese: KIYOHIKO Azuma) is a mangaka etc., etc., etc.
- A redirect page could be created for Kiyohiko Azuma that would point back to Azuma Kiyohiko.
- On the page Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi:
- Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi (Japanese: YAGYU Jubei Mitsyoshi) (1607?-1650?) is one of the most famous etc., etc., etc.
- No redirect page is created for Jubei Mitsuyoshi Yagyu.
In this way, when the kanji can be added by someone who knows, it's easy to update and continue using the same convention.
Still leaves the question of list pages where there are mixed names, like List of Japanese people and List of Japan-related topics. Perhaps we could list them as they are listed in the article title, but with the last names capitalizes to avoid confusion? I'm open to suggestions on this point.
Looks like we're moving along well. We'll beat this problem into submission! :)
RadicalBender 01:46, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Ok, I'm convinced ;) As for the mixed pages, I think the ultimate goal should be to beat them into submission to the shiny, new and improved naming convention, no?
- Speaking of the shiny, new and improved naming convention, does someone get to write it up and post it proudly somewhere accessible? (Where would that be btw?)
- Exploding Boy 02:09, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
- Fair enough on the mixed pages. Besides, even if something comes up, we'll address it later. We've tackled enough for now, methinks. :)
- As far as the next steps, let me ask at the Village Pump for suggestions and see what others say. I think we just edit the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Japanese) page though.
- RadicalBender 02:19, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I don't mean to spoil the collaboration seeming happening here now. This kind of constructive discussion is really great. I just want to say that it does look ugly to me. It is possible to make the first sentence more informative but more is not always better. Can we have more compact first sentence? -- Taku 02:37, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
There has been a lot of extra information flying around, but just to be clear, the first sentence would look like this:
Yuki Kajiura (Japanese: 梶浦 由記, KAJIURA Yuki) is .......
I think it's the best compromise so far. It covers: English name order, Japanese name order (with explanation for those unfamiliar), kanji, kanji order, and it leaves nothing open to confusion. I don't think it's too cluttered; personally I appreciate the detail. Do you have any other ideas? Exploding Boy 03:02, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
- I know it's long, but I don't really see any way around it. It does, however, meet most of the requirements that have come up. I mean, you can see our thought processes outlined above. If you have suggestions for shortening it that meets the same multitude of requirements we went back and forth about, I'd love to see it, actually. That said, I still think that in the context of an article, it won't be a big deal at all. RadicalBender 03:06, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Sure whether it is cluttering or ugly depends on personal preference, and I don't have any better alternative comprimse. So I can agree with giving a shot. -- Taku 03:15, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
LOL :) If I'd had my way all articles would be SN-GN with a {msg}! Exploding Boy 03:19, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
- Rather than linking to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Japanese) each time, Why not link to Japanese name? As in:
Yuki Kajiura (Japanese: 梶浦 由記, KAJIURA Yuki) is .......
- or
Yuki Kajiura (Japanese name: 梶浦 由記, KAJIURA Yuki) is .......
- Better? Martin 04:44, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I'm ambivalent to the idea. If it were under a separate header on Japanese name that said Japanese names on Wikipedia that might be fine. But, on the other hand, this page (the article page) is specifically for the naming conventions used on the Wikipedia site.
- RadicalBender 04:52, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Japanese name doesn't really describe the results of this long, long process, that is, that on Wikipedia we give Japanese names in GN-SN order, but that Japanese names are normally the reverse in Japanese, and that we underline the kanji for the last name and capitalize the last name in romaji as above... I think naming conventions (Japanese) is better.
Speaking of naming conventions, now that we've nearly got personal names out of the way, what are the rules, if any, for geographical names?
Exploding Boy 08:36, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to open this back up.
It appears to me people who want GN-SN do so because: 1) it's a standard among the Anglophone press, 2) it's what people will look for if they dont know better (which most users won't) and 3) it aids in searchability.
we're in agreement (??) on SN-GN on Korean and Chinese names (the equivalent debate for Chinese names is not SN-GN vs. GN-SN but SN-GN vs. EN-SN vs. EN-SN-GN, where EN is "English name") because media conventions and informed (vs inituitive, i personnaly dont think one wholesale better than the other) logic agree, even if we're if not in agreement on how to romanize Hur Bum-suk.
The people who (did) want SN-GN feel that it makes more sense to those who aren't unfamiliar with japanese culture, that it's more logical given certain things that can be proven true, eg, what their names actually are.
there's several points i wanna make here, in no particular order.
anglophone media dont just swap name orders. a direct romanization of, say, "tokyo," is "toukyou"; americans say "tokio." Americans screw Japanese names up no matter what cuz, well, theyre americans, and they speak english. Miyazaki's name is getting dropped a lot, so: in the english dub of spirited away everyone pronounces chihiro "chihiiro" or "chihiirou." pitch shift on the japanese is ^ _ _ (common for japanese trisyllabics), but common practice for english trisyllabics is to stress the middle syllable (syllable, japanese, copyright being some of the many exceptions). thats a pro for GN-SN.
people think haiku count syllables, pronounce harakiri harikari and sake saki. pro for SN-GN.
historically we get this GN-SN in common parlance bc of nisei who didnt get english names (like, say, second generation chinese americans). historically whites who didnt know much about japanese naming conventions wouldve heard 'kurosawa akira' and thought akira was his family name. they also wouldve thought it was chinese (goldberg, iceberg, you're all the same the me. etc) i mean, what it boils down to, is japanese people changed their names (from SN-GN to GN-SN) and chinese people changed their names (from SN-GN to EN-SN) because it was easier than explaining to white people that not everyone does things the same way white people do thing. pro SN-GN.
if you search "Nagisa Oshima," get no results, and dont immediately search "Oshima Nagisa" it's because you dont how how to use a search engine, not because you dont speak japanese. searching "Labor Party," getting nothing, not searching "Labour Party" has less of a moron factor. full text searches're always bloody disabled anyway.
that said, soon as you figure "Takashi Miike" might be under "Miike Takashi," soon as you figure it out once, the argument for "people will naturally think to look names up GN-SN and will never think to look them up SN-GN disappears. hence its only really "necessary" for novice users who throw their hands in the air and give up rather than reading the help pages.
there's more of a need for people who want to be able to read the kanji but cant to be able to than there is for the people who dont wanna learn that japanese names go SN-GN to not have. wikipedia's here so people can learn. Godzilla and Yankees were cited; Fox Sports, like Fox News, is there so people wont learn.
i'm sorry, but the imdb example is really, not good. imdb uses iso-8859-1. they cant include diaresis for mandarin romanization. they refuse to use to [mora]+(end-consonant-mora)+[1-5] scheme that anyone else doing ascii or iso-8859-1 pinyin would employ. also, it's only imdb POLICY to list them GN-SN. despite that policy being very clearly stated, and the info submission forms very unambiguously asking for names to be submitted in the [last_name, first_name] format (except mononyms like cher) they still have lots of japanese people's name's in the database listed backwards, ie, SN-GN whilst claiming to be GN-SN.
im not sure if cash-my-check is a good example or not. HK i dont know, but mainland chinese and tawainese would never call him chiang kai-shek. mainland he's Jiang3 Jie4 Shi1, taiwan hes Chiang Zhongzheng; streets're named "zhongzheng-lu." ive referred to chiang kai-shek and people just gave me blank stares. the trend is away from wade giles (which has a low learning curve but isnt as logical as pinyin) to pinyin (which is the inverse), eg we now say mao zedong not mao tsetsung. (ive also seen an academic critic lambast authors for their ignorance at using wade-giles; ive also seen the very same critic use wade-giles in the very same piece of work, so...)
i dont agree that we should do things wrong (i havent heard anyone ever argue that GN-SN is right, per se, only that it's what we're used to) simply because 1) people are ignorant and need to be coddled and 2) people in the media who arent ignorant are willing to coddle them. i dont think we need to put a message on exery page explaining that japanese say their names SN-GN, nor do i think we need to link to such a message from every page.
i'm not even sure that a page on the NYY referencing Matsui should be GN-SN. if it links to a page on him that reads Mastui Hideki ([unicode kanji], [italicized furigana, were there discrepncies in vowels, which there arent with Matsui] at the top and refers to him as "Matsui" (ie, his family name) throughotu. people can figure out which is which. people can figure out the soseki is the GN in Natsume Soseki (despite his always being referred to as soseki), that ichiro is the GN in Ichiro Suzuki (despite his always being referred to as Ichiro, and his jersey saying "ichiro" rather than "suzuki" or "i. suzuki"). swapping name order (back to the chinese) always perpetuates the misconception that given names in asia are exactly the same as given names in the west, ie, that some named Liu Xia could be addressed as Xia ie "Hi, Xia, how are you?" which is patently erroneously and'll draw dirty stares amongst chinese company unfamiliar with the ways and (mis-)conduct of benlaowai.
My $0.02.
Nateji77 14:17, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
- But the thing is, we've already been over all those points (see the full discussion until now). We're trying to reach a compromise. The problem with all this madness is that there is no perfect solution, we're just trying to reach one that's meets all the needs and that's what the above solution addresses.
- As I mentioned earlier, Wikipedia itself says that "the titles should represent common usage." That point alone should trump most of the other discussions. Now, that said, we do address all your issues in the first line. It would cover GN-SN name order, SN-GN name order, kanji, kanji name order, a link to the explanation of naming order in Japan and all done in the most minimal way possible. And, just to reiterate the proposal, this is what we're talking about (although the details are still being hashed out):
- Yuki Kajiura (Japanese: 梶浦 由記, KAJIURA Yuki) is .......
- It covers all those bases. I really don't want to retread all this ground again.
- RadicalBender 17:39, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Wikipedia says names should be in a format that is most natural to the majority of English speakers and then proceeds, in the same paragraph, to spell capitalization with a z.
- To be honest, I don't really have any problem with the compromise that's been worked out, because it does cover all bases and isnt inaccurate in any way. if that paragraph's there it hardly matters what the page title is. what irks me is having to write "akira kurosawa" in a page on samurai film. there's the foucaultian discourse argument to make, but really, it just FEELS wrong. the idea that SN-GN should be used on an individual basis where (natsume soseki) it's more common usage, really bothers me, because only a minority of japanese people are household names amongst people to whom GN-SN is more natural. how many average anglophones have heard of ayumi? it makes more sense to use GN-SN as an exception to the rule in instances of global celebrity (yoko ono, hidetoshi nakata) and SN-GN as general practice for what should (even if it isnt yet) be the vast majority of pages on japanese people whom know one who isnt special interest will have heard of (eg Sawato Midori).
- i have read the threads, the compromise covers all concerns concerning ambiguity. i dont take issue with that. it's making standard house voice GN-SN for refernces to people on pages other than their page own page (use the format proposed for kurosawa's page, but the The Seven Samurai IMO should say The Seven Samurai is a film by Japanese director Kurosawa Akira.
- i think there's a very small number of pages relevant to this discussion now vs. what there will be in 5-10 years, and holding off on standardizing practices is preferable to having to go through the dbase in 10 years time and change things back if we change our minds. i also think it's probable most of the people starting pages on japanese people are going to be people familiar with japanese conventions; i'd be willing to go through the List of Japan-related topics page and put together % numbers on GN-SN to SN-GN entries (at a quick glance they look kind of even; wwii entries (more likely to be GN-SN) are a high % of whats been done but a low % of what there is yet to be done.) i feel this is relevant because writers are going to write what they think is right; if they havent read pages like this one that's more likely to be SN-GN; more time will be spent on normalization from SN-GN to GN-SN.
- how bout this: 1) the compromise reached be the model for opening paragraphs in bio pages 2) rather than draw a line between 1867 and 1868, or venn diagrams to separate things like "20th century noh drama" from "world war ii generals," make the blanket policy in effect that there is no blanket policy in effect and allow people working on the individual pages to hash it out amongst themselves for references to people, as theyll be best suited to decide what is or is not common usage for their readers, with a proviso that if that they cant come to an agreement than references should be made GN-SN. i dont read the page titles so i personally dont care what the syntax on those is, but redirects will avoid people writing links without doing searches (it happens) that are then orphaned and/or us getting duplicates.
- Nateji77 22:17, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
- Several problems (and, hopefully I'm getting everything correct because this discussion is becoming very hard to read).
- First off, I don't think that "no policy" or "leave it up to each person" is really a valid option. Because that's where we are now and it's a mess. I don't see how just determining "common name" by using a Google search isn't enough to determine which order is more or less the common one. If you do it that way, it just naturally falls that older/traditional names use SN-GN and more modern names use GN-SN.
- You mention the possibility of having to change a standard in 5-10 years. I'm not seeing this however. The ordering of peoples' names is not likely to change in people's minds over the next 5-10 years. I don't imagine a sudden burst of people saying "Kurosawa Akira" in English in the near future.
- And speaking of which, I'd like to remind everyone that this is the English Wikipedia. And, in links I keep mentioning, we're supposed to default to the "common name," which, using every method I can think of in English, keeps using "GN-SN" for most modern Japanese people. On the Japanese Wikipedia, I would defer to whatever was considered common there as well, which is obviously SN-GN.
- On the matter of consistency with Chinese and Korean, no, it's not consistent and I don't know why that is, actually. I guess it probably has to do with more exportation of Japan's popular culture than China or Korea and somewhere along the way, someone decided to use the GN-SN standard with Japanese names and it's mostly stuck. The only exceptions I see for Chinese also seem to be popular culture as well.
- Anyways, I'm going to shuffle the discussion slightly because, frankly, this page is becoming indecipherable, even for me. I'll make a few modifications here in a second.
- RadicalBender 20:31, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- My feelings are that a link to Japanese name is more useful to readers, whereas this naming convention is primarilly designed for writers. So, it would make sense to me to link to Japanese name in the actual article, and link to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Japanese) in an HTML comment. (They start with < !--- and end with -- >, with no spaces) . That way if anyone went to edit the intro, they'd see the link to this naming convention. Martin 15:17, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- does it need to be a message? or could a See also Japanese name link at the bottom suffice? your distinction between writers and readers makes a lot of sense; should we out a link to the naming convention (japanese) page on the Japanese name page? (along the lines of "wikipedia contributors please see...?" also, it there ruby support? i thought (easily wrong) xhtml 1.1 had it but there were no user agents (web browsers) that would display it; the japanese pages dont use it so it's doubtful (but worth mentioning?). Nateji77 18:09, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
Ok, I thought it would be a good idea to look at the Chinese and Korean naming convention pages, but couldn't find them anywhere. Links anyone?Exploding Boy 07:51, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Names and Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Chinese) Nateji77 14:54, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)
Also, Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Korean)#Names. In both cases the preferred format is SN-GN, except when the is better known in English as GN-SN. This is a problem for us, because it stands to reason that the Japanese naming convention would follow the Chinese and Korean. Exploding Boy 15:01, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)
Korean page mentions hyphens; what do we do want to do with name's like Tanizaki Jun'ichiro or Kore-eda Hirokazu that (sometimes) contain punctuation? Nateji77 15:29, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)
Not quite the same: here Jun'ichiro shows it isn't Juni-chiro (so that one can infer the correct kana at least). The hyphens for Korean are 'official'. So, one would only need to write 'Jun'ichiro' once in an article.
Charles Matthews 17:05, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Alpha Lists of Names
This sounds to me like a tremendous and good advance; my congratulations to the principal discussers!
I'd like to give some thought to its implications for the few places (perhaps List of people by name is the only one that matters) where the format "SN, GN" (with the comma written) is used for Western names. IMO the "pure Japanese case" is the easiest to deal with, substituting "SN GN":
- Matsuo Basho, (1644-1694), haiku poet
- Matsys, Quentin, (c.1466-1530), painter
(See List of people by name: Mas-Maz#Mati - Mats if you want more context & markup.)
There may be no more to this than covering the obvious in your draft, but i'm not clear, without taking more time than i can at the moment, about what the implications are for, e.g., Kurosawa.
et al.
(It's not impossible that my entry at List of people by name: Tf-Th#Thf - Thi, for Thich Nhat Hanh, illustrates a Wiki-typographic mechanism that might have some minor role somewhere in this.)
BTW, tho it was hinted at, how about specifically saying that the SN-all-caps ("Akira KUROSAWA") format is, say, "never used in WP except adjacent to the normal mixed-case form of the same name"? All caps submerges, at least in the US, the difference among, e.g.
- DaRin
- daRin
- Darin
which illustrate approaches that IIRC are each chosen by some actual Italian-Americans. (Not to mention the versions that keep the space before the capital R, and the ones -- where the cap is a vowel, i think -- with or without an apostrophe!) IMO, you have found a non-harmful use for this mechanism, but i'd hate to see it inadvertantly promoted for indiscriminate use. --Jerzy 18:54, 2004 Feb 9 (UTC)
Reposting potential compromise proposal
Reposting this (with a header this time) because it's getting harder to find. This proposal assumes the usage of whatever is most common (GN-SN for most modern, SN-GN for most historical). I also propose we use Google (English sites only, using quotes) as a general arbiter for which is the most common order in English when there is a dispute. There are flaws in this methodology (some of which have already been pointed out), but it's the best method of determining that I can think of. RadicalBender 20:44, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Examples of the proposal (see the discussion for the thought processes that led to this):
- On the page Yuki Kajiura:
- Yuki Kajiura (Japanese: 梶浦 由記, KAJIURA Yuki) is a Japanese composer, etc., etc., etc.
- A redirect page may be created for Kajiura Yuki that would point back to Yuki Kajiura.
- On the page Ayumi Hamasaki:
- Ayumi Hamasaki (Japanese: 浜崎 あゆみ, HAMASAKI Ayumi) (b. October 2, 1978) is a Japanese singer, etc., etc., etc.
- A redirect page is created for Hamasaki Ayumi that would point back to Ayumi Hamasaki.
- On the page Tokugawa Ieyasu:
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (Japanese: 徳川 家康, TOKUGAWA Ieyasu) (January 30, 1543 - June 1, 1616) was the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, etc., etc., etc.
- A redirect page is not needed for Ieyasu Tokugawa that would point back to Tokugawa Ieyasu (although one currently exists and it would be left alone).
I guess another final note would be on names without kanji or kana. For that, I think, it would look identical (including underline, so that it's not forgotten later), just without the kanji. So:
- On the page Azuma Kiyohiko:
- Azuma Kiyohiko (Japanese: KIYOHIKO Azuma) is a mangaka etc., etc., etc.
- A redirect page could be created for Kiyohiko Azuma that would point back to Azuma Kiyohiko.
- On the page Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi:
- Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi (Japanese: YAGYU Jubei Mitsyoshi) (1607?-1650?) is one of the most famous etc., etc., etc.
- No redirect page is created for Jubei Mitsuyoshi Yagyu.
Vote
If we have a vote on the English-language conventions for the names of Japanese people, here are some of the issues:
- Title: Surname first Kurosawa Akira, or given name first Akira Kurosawa?
- First bold mention: Does the article start with Kurosawa Akira (also known as Akira Kurosawa) or Akira Kurosawa (also known as Kurosawa Akira)?
- Consistency with China and Korea: Should our Japanese naming convention be independent of our Chinese and Korean naming conventions, or should we try to make one unified standard?
Note that a common convention I forget to list above is to put the surname in all caps, e.g., KUROSAWA Akira in the Akira Kurosawa article. --Uncle Ed 17:44, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I went through some scholary publications, one of which used SN-GN for koreans and chinese but Gn-SN (eg Akira KUROSAWA) for japanese. another one favoured GN-SN but couldnt keep it straight. ESPN uses GN-SN for CJK except Yao Ming; i think there's less ambiguity with Chinese and Korean names bc they tend (and the PRC gov't is about to mandate) to use three character names, so both Kim Jong-Il and Jong-Il Kim have obvious orders to anyone familiar with that convention.
- whats the plan on refernces in other pages, eg "George Lucas's A New Hope borrows liberally from the plot of Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. Either/or so long as it's consistent within a given page and links to the persons page where there's clarification for those who want it? Nateji77 19:48, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I'd also like to add to the vote the compromise proposal listed above (yea or nay, at least in principle - the minor details need to be hashed out still). It's not necessarily predicated on the use of GN-SN, but for the modern cases where GN-SN is more common, I feel that it still covers almost all of the concerns raised by everyone thus far.
- RadicalBender 20:44, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Above example states KIYOHIKO Azuma. Is it really true, or isn't it AZUMA Kiyohiko? 219.110.57.165 03:55, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- You know, looking it up, I think you're right. But that just goes to illustrate just how much of a problem this all is. :) RadicalBender 04:02, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- it's not a problem for the people putting in the unicode. :) Nateji77 06:39, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Japanese Naming Conventions (Problem Solved, Hopefully)
(from the village pump)
After quite a bit of going back and forth, I think we've finally come to an agreement on the matter of Japanese naming conventions (see the talk page for conclusion and rationale).
But our question is: what is the next step towards making this "policy"? Do we just modify the Japanese Naming Conventions page with the compromise we reached or is there something else we need to do or someone to talk to?
RadicalBender 02:25, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Well, all Wikipedia policies are unofficial to a greater or lesser extent. I'd modify the Japanese Naming Conventions page with the compromise, and then begin treating it as policy. If someone strongly disagrees at a later date, they can then re-raise the issue if they wish. --Delirium 09:43, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
Square One
Several pages seem to have links to Japanese name rather than Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Japanese). Perhaps a notice should be put in Japanese name. Fukumoto 02:41, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Uh, Nateji77 seems to have taken it upon himself to follow a particular standard but nothing was ever fully-agreed upon here. Hmmm. Whatever happened to putting all this to a vote? RadicalBender 04:42, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Thought we'd agreed on that. You were claiming we were all in agreement and asking how to make things policy. We shouldnt link to this page, as it's verbose. Instead of a Wikipedia talk page we should just have the wikipedia page cited just above, or the Japanese name page. I don't care which. Would like to point out that this is the only place i've ever heard "Ayumi Hamasaki" and also the only place i've ever heard "UTC" instead of "GMT," as far as "most natural to most english speakers" goes.
Nateji77 06:21, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Most of us had agreed (or, probably more specifically, ExplodingBoy and myself), but some others came in towards the end of the discussion with some objections, so I considered the matter otherwise unsettled (because we didn't seem to be moving anywhere). I left it alone with the intention of coming back and addressing this later.
- Anyways, as far as what to link to, that was always kinda up in the air, but I'm pretty neutral on that.
- Finally, I obviously can't attest to your background (since I'm not you :), so I don't know what contexts from which you would know peoples' name orders, but I have seen Ayumi Hamasaki in that order quite often (although irregularly, because no one can agree to a standard on the internet at all). Interestingly enough, a quick search on Ayumi Hamasaki shows that her own web site uses the western order for her romanized name.
- And I can't speak to UTC vs. GMT, because I've seen both. The only practical difference, I thought, was that GMT still observes DST whereas UTC does not. *shrugs*
- RadicalBender 06:56, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- yeah, so they're obviously non-equivalent. and show aikawa, which you cant even write in kana, on his page. there's a tendency (a harmful one, IMO) in mainstream media towards GN-SN. in terms of patterns thats definitely the most prevalent, what editors would resort to (even midnight eye), but that with most individual names the person in question is cited mostly in either english documents by: 1) CJK speakers who dont "know to" invert and 2) specialists who refuse to invert.
- but debating it further seemes pointless, as the argument for GN-SN is to accomodate people who don't know the arguments. when do the polls close on voting?
- Nateji77 09:34, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I've been kind of wondering about that too. Last I remember there was talk of following the Chinese/Korean naming conventions (ie: SN-GN). The debate seems to have fizzled.Exploding Boy 09:55, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Vote (Again)
I think if we leave this section at the bottom it will have more sense of finality than if it's in the middle. Nateji77 06:49, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I think we had enough debate. -- Taku
- 1. Title: Surname first Kurosawa Akira, or given name first Akira Kurosawa?
- 2. First bold mention: Does the article start with Kurosawa Akira (also known as Akira Kurosawa) or Akira Kurosawa (also known as Kurosawa Akira)?
- 3. Consistency with China and Korea: Should our Japanese naming convention be independent of our Chinese and Korean naming conventions, or should we try to make one unified standard?
- Nateji77
- 1) whatever's most common. Yoko Ono for her, Natsume Soseki for him.
- 2) SN-GN. saves having to repeat romaji next to the kanji, isn't wrong, and if consistent won't be confusing
- 3) people invert name order for Chinese and Koreans, on occasion, eg Wen-ho Lee. I see no reason not to follow their lead.
- Taku
- 1. GN-SN for modern figures otherwise SN-GN while while we deliberately not specify what is modern to have consensus.
- 2. The same as the title
- 3. No consideration at all.
- RadicalBender
- 1. GN-SN for modern, SN-GN for historical. Would prefer Google (with quotes) to be final arbiter should the need arise. Any name that could be construed as the opposite, however, gets a redirect.
- 2. Same as title
- 3. I agree for no consideration. Naming conventions should be independent of each other when necessary.
- Exploding Boy
- 1. Title: SN-GN, except in cases where the person is only, or most commonly known by the reverse, eg: Yoko Ono.
- 2. First bold mention: SN-GN
- 3. Consistency with China and Korea: Japanese naming convention should be consistent with Chinese and Korean naming conventions.
- Enochlau
- 1. Whichever is most common. One thing to note is that print encyclopedias use surname first no matter what, but wikipedia articles tend to use titles that reflect common usage, and we should stick to that for consistency.
- 2. After title, start article with kanji followed by romanisation with surname in CAPITALS
- 3. No consideration
- Jerzy(t)
- 1. GN-SN for modern, SN-GN for historical. Any name that could reasonably be construed as the opposite (by someone with a working knowledge of English, of course) gets a redirect.
- 2. Same as title. (And of course Kangi, etc., following is fine.) However (and while i'd like to know about the style sheets of any Japanese periodicals that publish in English for the fluently bilingual, in considering the exact wording), with moderns not simply "also" but something like
- Akira Kurosawa (known in Japan as Kurosawa Akira)
- 3. Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, and Hungarian need separate consideration and don't affect this. (As to Hungarian, note the contrast between Hary Janos or Háry Janós (oh, well, see its composer) on one hand, and Janos Kadar on the other.) Japanese is actually an easier case bcz Japanese-Americans, Briticized Japanese, etc. are all moderns. With some other cultures, adoption of a foreign culture by individuals, or greater significance abroad than at home, started earlier and more slowly.
- KIZU
- 1. Basically SN-GN: excepts the persons described are still alive and names themselves as GN-SN (e.g. Hideki Matsui 松井秀喜). Whenever someone refers to me in the way GN-SN, it makes me uneasy and ask them to call me SN-GN. Someone accept, someone ignored. On the latter case I feel very dishonored and put them into my kill-file.
- 2. Therefore the articles start with Kurosawa Akira (also known as Akira Kurosawa).
- 3. Chinese and Korean people seems to keep their SN-GN convention both inlands and abroad. Why we need a new standard for them?
I basically agree with RadicalBender's proposal, but it looks verbose. And I take a different approach. I want to make my proposal more general.
I once proposed that all Japanese names follow the Japanese convention, but it met stronger oppositions than I expected. Now I give up keeping consistency in title because there is no consistency in the current English convention. Instead, I suggest showing the Japanese order as "pronunciation guide" next to Japanese characters in parentheses:
- '''conventional English order''' (Japanese characters Japanese order)
Examples:
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (柿本 人麻呂 Kakinomoto no Hitomaro)
- Otomo no Yakamochi (大伴 家持 Ōtomo no Yakamochi)
- Junichiro Koizumi (小泉 純一郎 Koizumi Jun'ichirō)
This rule can be applied to non-personal names:
- Sanyo Main Line (山陽本線 San'yō honsen)
- Kanagawa Prefecture (神奈川県 Kanagawa-ken)
I am a native Japanese speaker and I don't know what kind of information English-speaking readers expect to Wikipedia. The distinction of vowel length is essential in Japanese but due to the difference of phonetic structure, it is often ignored in English. I also think that it needs to disambiguate syllable boundary (eg. じゅんいちろう or じゅにちろう).
I want to put such information within parentheses because
- I fear some users cannot see or input these special characters.
- Google distuiguishes o and ō etc.
I think it is annoying to link to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Japanese) or Japanese name. Decorating family names is enough. --Nanshu 03:02, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Adding Kunrei and Nippon-shiki
For the page, I added that the Kunrei and Nippon-shiki of a word should be in parenthenses after the Hepburn word in the opening paragraph. WhisperToMe 05:13, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I think it is rather cluttering. Is it really imporant to show every possible spellings for each Japan-related article? I expect readers are more interested in the content than names. Besides, most people don't know well (including me) about a difference in romanization methods. I would say,
- Anglicized name (kanji; romaji) is enough. Those ones like Hagi. -- Taku 05:19, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)
- I completely agree, it's cluttering. WhisperToMe, it looks like you're on a minor rampage in this area (for example, Chuo-ku), and while we appreciate your enthusiasm, it really isn't necessary. - - Paul Richter 04:53, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Agreed. It's best to stick to Hepburn because it gives the best indication of pronunciation to English speakers. People who care about the other kinds of rōmaji know enough to work it out for themselves. I removed some of the more annoying examples of multiple rōmaji and heavily edited Wikipedia:Manual of Style for Japan-related articles — Gdr 18:59, 2004-03-30