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Comment by hyperrail | Hacker News Reader

There is an impressive amount of variation regarding personal name formats even within Asia.

In my culture (Thai), I put my given name first and then my family name (inherited from my father), like in most of the west, but actually my name of formal address is my first, given name, and my family name is hardly ever used except as a differentiator. [1]

In Vietnamese culture, I believe the given name is also the name of formal address, yet the family name comes first as in China and Japan. Hence Nguyen Anh would be called "Anh".

[1] http://blog.jclark.com/2007/12/thai-personal-names.html

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I have seen the following variations in Pakistan. Given name is what people prefer to be called informally. * marks if people strongly prefer to be referred to by this name in a formal setting. Prefixes are usually religious in nature (Muhammad/Syed) and then you are never supposed to use them except when reading out the full name.

FamilyName GivenName*

<optional prefix> GivenName FamilyName

GivenName* Father'sGivenName

GivenName Father'sGivenName FamilyName

Father'sGivenName GivenName FamilyName

Prefix GivenName*

My name is of the third type and as a scientist it annoys me immensely that my work is referred to by my Father'sGivenName in western culture when no one has ever called me that in real life in my culture.

> My name is of the third type and as a scientist it annoys me immensely that my work is referred to by my Father'sGivenName in western culture

By what would you prefer your work be referred to, assuming a formal setting?

Not OP. But similar situation. My name is of the form <given nane> <father's given name> (a bit more complicated than that, see my other comment). So if my father's given name is Jack, my name may be Michael Jack. In my native setting I am always referred to as Mr Michael. Very rarely Mr Michael Jack. Never Mr Jack, because that is how my father would be referred to as. So in a western setting I am almost always called Mr Jack and in my mind it is my dad, not me.

As Dr. GivenName in formal settings. As or GivenName et al. in references. As just GivenName in informal settings.

I did not know that this was common in Pakistan. I am from south India and my name (and almost all names in this part of the country) are of the form. <GivenName> <Father's Given Name>. This gets less common as one moves towards the north of the country, where <Given Name> <Family Name> is more common. So I had assumed the Pakistan would be same given its proximity to and shared culture with North India. (actually the name is <initial> <given nane> where the initial is the first letter of the father/mother's name. When expanded to satisfy the north - esp for passports or in a western system, it becomes <first>-<Father's first> or <fathers first> - <first>. the reason it is that way in the south was related to the self respect movement aimed at eliminating caste among others. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_name#Tamil_Nadu)

My family immigrated from North India (UP) at partition and we use the <GivenName> <Father's Given Name> convention. Most of these other mentioned conventions are from Pakistan's Punjab, but also from other areas.

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