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Comment by Causality1 | Hacker News Reader

Personally I think this is a matter of translation. In English the personal name comes first followed by the surname. In Japanese honorifics come after the name but it would be quite silly to ask foreign media to call Abe Shinzo "Abe Shinzo Mr." instead of "Mr. Abe Shinzo" or for an American to ask British media to not refer to American mothers as "mum". Sometimes localizing a name means altering it.

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I don’t think it’s just a matter of translation preference. I think it’s also to be respectful to the people whose names are being mentioned.

When Chinese or Japanese concert Roman names to Hanzi/Kana, they try to observe the FIRSTNAME LASTNAME convention if preferred by that culture. Such as スティーブン・ポール・“スティーブ”・ジョブズ (Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs)

This is something that is hard for me to understand because I wouldn't think it was disrespectful to be called Barney James in another language.(honestly I wouldn't care if they called me Barney James in English)

This is framed as "respectful", but it's another way to mark the person as an outsider.

But we don't usually reorder Chinese and Korean names, and before the Meiji era Japanese names weren't reordered (or rather, we don't reorder the names of historical figures!?), so it's Tokugawa Ieyasu not Ieyasu Tokugawa.

With the result that if I'm reading a random name from an Asian nation I have absolutely no idea which is the personal name and which the family name. Usually that's inconsequential, but it would cause problems if I ever had dealings with business contacts overseas.

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