IP: Human Naming Conventions (and you thought computers were bad djf)

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 12:46:16 -0800
From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>

After I had been corresponding with a person I'm working on a conference in 
Singapore (http://www.apricot.net) for several days named Dr. Tan Tin Wee 
and me unknowingly mutilating his name in various ways, (Mainly addressing 
him as Tan Tin and probably doing some dyslexic variations as well). He sent 
me this link. I suspect he's sensitive to this as he wrote this article on 
naming conventions around the world:

http://www.apng.org/namecard/name-convention1.7.html

I generally have problems remembering names and getting them straight. If 
I'm lucky, I latch the first few letters of a person's name and western 
naming conventions usually let me get by. But these multiple named, with 
variations of spelling and order makes my default name recognition/memory 
fail! 

I'm really going to be in trouble when the extra-terrestrials arrive :-)


-- 
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development
14510 Big Basin Way #253  Saratoga, CA 95070 
Voice: 408-882-4755 Fax: 408-490-2868
Email: rberger () ibd com http://www.ibd.com Version 1.7. July 1998 T.W.Tan Version 1.6. June 1996 T.W.Tan 
------------------------------------------------------------------------- A non-authoritative guide to name conventions 
to assist network users in addressing each other and for understanding names used in the Internet. (c) 1993, 1994, 
1995, 1996 T.W.Tan and P.K.W.Tan, National University of Singapore. (c) 1998 T.W.Tan, National University of Singapore 
Name Conventions by T.W.Tan Associate Director, Centre for Internet Research Director, Bioinformatics Centre National 
University of Singapore and Chairman, Asia Pacific Networking Group Area Co-Director, Asia Pacific Advanced Network 
Consortium Introduction ------------ 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 (originally with Dr Peter Tan, NUS) have written this short article. 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. Western name convention 
----------------------- 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 be
 name. When abbreviated, it would become "M.L.King" and so on. Names of married women ---------------------- Women may 
also retain their maiden (sur)name as their middle name after marriage; for instance, Hillary Rodham Clinton uses her 
husband's surname Clinton as her own, and her original surname "Rodham" as her middle name. 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 (jsq () tic com). 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 ie. Jane Jones-Smith, and 
their children henceforth known by the double surname Jones-Smith, or Smith-Jones. Married women who take on their 
husbands' surnames can still indicate their maiden names in other ways. For instance, when Mary Jones married John 
Smith, she may call herself Mrs John Smith. Mark Anbinder points out that if she were widowed or divorced, she may 
refer to herself as Mrs Mary Smith (but these days, this practice is fairly common among many, regardless of the 
woman's status). If, however, she wants to indicate her maiden name, she may write "Mary Smith nee Jones" or "Mary 
Smith (Jones)". (The word "nee" means "born" in French.) For instance, Homerton College, Cambridge University in 
England uses the latter convention in its publications. Karen Jensen reminds us of a newly evolving convention, which 
is becoming more and more common: that of a woman retaining her original surname when she marries. For example, when 
she married Ron Coles, she made no change in her name. Therefore, there is no way for anyone to know that she is 
married unless they were to see the written form "Mrs Karen Jensen", whereby one might mistakenly assume that her 
husband's surname was "Jensen". At social gatherings, her husband will int
 Karen Jensen". This is particularly popular among professionally employed women and those who marry later in life, 
although not necessarily so. One reason may be that they would have achieved professional significance with their names 
and would wish to retain the original form of their names for convenience. Thus if one has published widely, the 
retention of one's own name will maintain continuity and certainly avoid confusion. Although this convention is 
becoming widespread in America, there are examples elsewhere, for instance, a colleague of ours at the National 
University of Singapore, Dr K.L. Chua, remained Dr Chua, even though she married Dr T.M.Lim, and similarly Dr J.L.Ding 
with Dr B.Ho. I am also given to understand that in China, this is the convention and that married women do not alter 
their names at all. Other name conventions ---------------------- 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, and the woman's name Fatihah binte (or bte) Ithnin would mean Fatihah, daughter of Ithnin. 
When abbreviated, especially in journals, the names will appear as Ibrahim Abdul Kadir, or I. Abdul Kadir, and Fatihah 
Ithnin. Women, at least in Malaysia and Singapore, when married, still retain their full names, such that there is 
usually no way of knowing if she is married or not, unless the honorific gives her status away. In the telephone book, 
the examples given above will appear under I for Ibrahim and F for Fatihah. They would be addressed as Encik (Enche) 
Ibrahim and Puan Fatihah, respectively. For unmarried men and women, it is possible to address them with the 
honorifics, Saudara and Saudari, respectively, although this is not common in Singapore. In Arab nations, "bin" would 
be rendered "ibn", and in Israel, "bin" would be rendered "ben" an
 Names from the Indian subcontinent such as Subbiah Subramaniam would be Subramaniam, son of Subbiah, and 
correspondingly abbreviated as S.Subbiah, under the Western convention. However, according to N.Sathyanarayanan (sathya 
() vbirch ce vt edu), 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.Subramaniam 
in his home country, Subramaniam being his given name, and "S." referring to his father's name. David R. Micklem, of 
the Wellcome/CRC Institute in Cambridge, UK (drm21 () mbuk bio cam ac uk) 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 a parent or a place name. Thus "O'Keefe" might mean "from Keefe" or "son of 
Keefe", or "of Keefe" (says Keith Robison - robison () biosun harvard edu), just like the "Mac" or "Mc" in Scottish 
names. C.J. O'Kane confirms this: "O'" means grandson in Gaelic and surnames with this prefix signifies Irish origin. 
Thus, the surname "O'Keefe" indicates that centuries ago in Ireland, somebody who first adopted the name had a 
grandfather named Keefe, or the English transcription of the Gaelic. "Mac" on the other hand means son in Gaelic. 
Generally speaking, those with "Mac" in their surnames suggest Scottish origin while those with "Mc" suggest Irish 
origin. Thus "MacDonald" will be the equivalent of the English name, "Donaldson". 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, ie. "from", just as the Latin-based language
 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"; "Mac", "Mc" or "M'" as in MacLeod, McLeod or M'Leod (pronounced "Mur-Cloud") would be 
listed as if they were all spelt "Mac". Sometimes, as John Quarterman (jsq () tic com) 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 (vanbelzen () pa1 fgg eur nl) 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, ie. 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 Q
 example, say Olga Aleksandrovna Romanov: the middle name refers to her mother, Aleksandra, so I was told. However, for 
Sergei Aleksandrovich Romanov, the middle name refers to his father, Aleksander, but in familiar speech or writing, the 
family name Romanov may find itself omitted. According Andrei Mikheev who wrote to me, "this is actually not entirely 
correct since female middle name comes from the father rather than mother so for Olga Aleksandrovna Romanov (actually 
it should be Romanova - female surname) the middle name refers to her father, Alexander." 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" (who 
is a Belgian, as any Agatha Christie fan would know) 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 
John Quarterman 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". Names in Eastern cultures ------------------------- 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. eg. Mao Tse Tung - Mao is the 
surname/family name. Sun Yat Sen - Sun is surname. Roh Tae Woh - Korean president Roh - surname. Ho Chi Minh - Ho is 
surname. Lee Kuan Yew - Lee is surname. Deng Xiaoping - D
 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 (ie 
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 eg. Li Peng (Li is the family surname). 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, ie. if you were on 
"first name" terms with me, you would call me Tin Wee, or Tin-Wee. Notice that sometimes they are hyphenated. 
Romanisation of Chinese names ----------------------------- 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 (in 
the Wade-Giles romanization system) would become Mao Zedong. Incidentally, David Coder (dcoder () u washington edu) 
reminds me that the Wade-Giles system is still prevalent in Taiwan; so if you spot a Chinese name that looks like it 
has been transliterated in the Wade-Giles sytstem, your first guess would be that the owner or his parents came from 
Taiwan. Incidentally, place names in Taiwan are in the Wade-G
 eg. Taipei (not Taibei), Taichung (not Taizhong), Kaohsiung (not Gaoxiong). However, this is not always the case as 
the Chinese diaspora is altogether far too complex for any generalisations to be safely made. In recent years, the 
Hanyu Pinyin system has increasingly gained recognition as a standard. How does one's romanised name come about 
-------------------------------------- It helps to avoid confusion by knowing how the romanization happens. A typical 
situation goes like this. You have a baby and need to get it a birth certificate. Not knowing English, you try your 
best at the Registrar of Births to pronounce the name you have given the baby. So the Cantonese will call their child 
(say if it were the first author of this article - TTW) something like Chan Teng Wai, and if the translator who 
happened to be around was Mandarin-speaking, would say, Chen Ding Wei, and if Hokkien-speaking, would say Tan Teng Oui 
(like the French for "yes"), and then, the person recording it will try his/her best to transliterate that. So it can 
just as easily become Tan Teng Wee as Tan Tin Wee, often depending on how acute the auditory sense is. Of course in 
TTW's case, his parents were educated and "Tan Tin Wee" was their choice (not really, for both the generational name 
and its transliteration had been fixed when the firstborn of TTW's first uncle on his father's side got his name 
registered). There have been cases, for example, where brothers whose surnames on their birth certificates are 
variously Yieh, Yap, Yip, Yeap, Yit, Ip, and if you try pronouncing them, you begin to realise how these emerged... at 
the Registrar of Births and at the hospital. Indeed, anecdotes abound at the Registrar's office. The father of the 
original second author, Peter Tan, was given the Hokkien transliteration Tan Chong Yau, which was transformed to Tan 
Chong Yew (Yew being the Cantonese pronunciation) when he settled in Kuala Lumpur (Chinese there predominantly 
Cantonese speaking), capital of Malaysia. A great-uncle was transformed from a "Tan"
 pronunciation of the surname)! >From the transliteration, one can usually tell which dialect one belongs to, if the 
Chinese standard characters are known, simply because one can guess how the different dialect groups would pronounce 
the characters. However, the same transliteration does not always refer to the same Chinese characters behind it all, 
because of the many homophones in the Chinese language. The surname "Ng", may actually refer to different surnames, eg. 
Huang2, Wu2, Wu3, it is just that when pronounced in the dialect, they end up sounding like "Ng". Similarly, "Ong" may 
actually be either Wang2, Weng1 or Hong2 (in the Hanyu Pinyin system). For those in Mainland China, they may not ever 
have to have an official romanised name. If they wish to get a passport to travel overseas, the romanised name is 
automatically the Hanyu Pinyin equivalent (without the tonal indicators, 0 to 4) of the Chinese characters. The story 
goes that the former President of the Philippines, Corazon Aquino's family name, Cojuangco, (the husband's surname was 
Aquino) came about when the patriach, of Chinese stock, wanted to register the children's names, the registrar heard 
the complete name of the patriach as Koh Huan Ko, and transliterated it as Spanish speaking people would, as Cojuangco. 
So to follow the convention of sticking the name of the father at the end, Cojuangco, became the family surname. 
Similarly for many Chinese in countries where the convention of using the father's name as the second name, eg in many 
African countries, such composite surnames are common. One Mauritian example would be Caroline Laitung - her father's 
full name being Lai Tung in Chinese. And so, for subsequent generations, Laitung will probably become the surname. 
Order of the Asian names ------------------------ An Asian in the west would often reverse the order of the name 
towards the western convention, eg. 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
 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. By the way, it should be noted that although most Chinese surnames are single 
character, (and single syllable as all Chinese characters have only one syllable), there are cases when they are double 
character, for example, Ouyang or Owyang, and Seetoh or Seetou, etc. For the Japanese, it is common to see their names, 
usually in two parts, already reversed in order, eg. 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, 
ie. Sugawara Hideaki. Again, as with Chinese names, these romanised forms (or Romaji) are based on the Japanese 
pronunciation of the Kanji (Chinese) characters. (Note that Japanese pronunciation may have more than one syllable per 
character.) 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 (ie. 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 familiar. Hence, it should never be used 
with strangers, older people, grown men or in f
 ----------------------- 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, eg. Bruce Lee. But if a Chinese woman who took a Western first name and later married a Westerner, says Dr 
Guang YANG (gyang () comptel unh edu), all traces of the Asian name may be lost; for instance, if Ms. Betty Bao married 
Mr Lord, then she would become Mrs Betty Lord or Betty B. Lord. 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, 
for example, Dr Yang, in the previous paragraph. 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 eg "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, eg. 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, errors, omissi
 or additions, please write to: Dr Tan Tin Wee National University of Singapore Tel=(65)-7747149 Int=tinwee () pobox 
org sg Acknowledgements ---------------- The following have spoken or 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 (sathya () vbirch ce vt edu) David R. Micklem, Wellcome/CRC Institute, Cambridge, UK. 
Nico van Belzen (vanbelzen () pa1 fgg eur nl) Keith Robison (robison () biosun harvard edu) C.J.O'Kane (lsrfe () csv 
warwick ac uk) Fatihah binte Ithnin and Rosliza binte Kanawi David Coder, Director, Cell Analysis Facility, Dept of 
Immunology, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, USA (dcoder () u washigton edu) Guang YANG, Space 
Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, (gyang () comptel unh edu) Tan Chor Mui and See Meng Hong Karen 
Jensen Professor of Communicative Disorders, California State University, Fresno. Mark H. Anbinder Director of 
Technical Services, Baka Industries, Ithaca, NY. Andrei Mikheev Note: Original manuscript jointly authored by Tan Tin 
Wee and Peter K.W. Tan. ____________________ End of manuscript (tinwee () pobox org sg)