Hacker News Reader

Comment by brian_herman__ | Hacker News Reader

isn’t his name Shinzo Abe?

In Japanese, people use the "FamilyName GivenName" order. Up until recently people generally used the "GivenName FamilyName" order when speaking English. Apparently this practice was adopted more than 100 years ago to be more western. Recently, the Japanese government decided that "FamilyName GivenName" was going to be the new standard when writing Japanese names in Roman letters[1]. Some people follow this and some people don't.

I did a quick ask around the office asking which order people would use when introducing themselves to someone from abroad. About half said "FamilyName GivenName", the other half said "GivenName FamilyName". So basically, if you meet someone from Japan the most straightforward thing to do is ask what they would prefer to be called.

[1]https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/09/06/national/japane...

What is fun is when you are a foreigner and Japanese colleagues earnestly think that they should call you "Jack-san" because it comes first in English. It's like "Mister Jack"! For a native English speaker it would be used jokingly/friendly, but Japanese people do it seriously. This is not being helped by these television programs with foreign celebrities (living in Japan) exclusively called by their nickname.

Most style guides suggest using the "GivenName FamilyName" order for foreigner names even when speaking in Japanese. You can see this reflected in most forms of writing.

I don't think Japanese people are in any state of confusion when they say Jack-san. Japanese people simply feel that dropping "san" would be rude and they have always been taught to refer to westerners by their given names. "san" doesn't exactly neatly map onto Mr either. Saying things like "driver-san" or "foreigner-san" is perfectly normal.

How rude is it to not use "san"? I've seen a client blow up over not having san attached to their name in an English email. Manners like this are quite deeply engrained: try not saying "thank you" the next time someone hands you something, it feels deeply wrong. It's hard to blame Japanese people for a similar adherence to manners.

Well, if you call anybody Yoshifumi-san (given that Yoshifumi is their given name), he would be very upset.

They make it clear that whenever you use their given name you should NOT add "san" to it.

So that's kind of weird that they do it for foreigners.

Yes they add "-san" to pretty much anything, but their given name is the one notable exception.

I think that there are ancient roots of this, for example in the Heian era the fact to be in relationship with a girl was synonymous to know her given name, and use it to call her before the date ("yobai"). The given name in Japan is something very personal and private, and this would explain why it seems incongruous to them when it is used with "-san".

Oh, I didn't make things clear. The email was completely written in English. I think there has to be a little cross-cultural understanding both ways in these situations.

Ah, my bad, I was speaking about when conversing completely in Japanese. Maybe they react differently / have different expectations when they are writing / speaking English.

From my experience, when speaking in Japanese, they are quite strict (if you are not a customer of course, in this case they would hide their feeling) about not adding "-san" to their given name, when they allow you to use the bare given name.

In the story you relate, in this email in English, was it the given name that was used, or the family name?

In Japan, the surname comes first. Both orders are found in English; surname last has been more common. I understand it is becoming more common to stop the reversal, in equivalent fashion as Xi Jinping who has his name in the Chinese order rather than the English order even in English.

Also Kim JongUn and Lee Hsien Long + Lee Kwan Yew

In Japan, the convention is to write the family name first and the given name second.

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/22/725753561/shinzo-abe-or-abe-s...

Now he wants to be known as ABE Shinzo as of this year.

Capitalizing the family name first is recommended here: https://www.languagemagazine.com/2020/01/23/japan-reverses-w...

I admit, it is confusing even for a Japanese speaker which one to me which is his family name or if I already need to flip the order.

The context is that too many people accidentally address him by his first name which is considered a bit embarrassing for polite society.

Most languages of East Asia have a Surname First Name order (even with limits to how many syllables the family name can have). So Mr. Shinzo’s first name is Abe, written as Shinzo Abe. Same with Korean’s Kim, whose first names are Jong Un or let’s say Vietnamese’s Ho Chi Min, whose surname was Ho. Sun Yat-sen (last name Sun), Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen (surname Tsai), Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew (Lee family) etc etc. You get the idea.

First- and sur- are part of the problem here. People tend to talk about given and family names to distinguish name semantics from name order.

I think you got this backward, Abe is his family name. Er, depends on what you call his "first name" lol.

Nitpick: the name is Ho Chi Minh, not Min.

That's the kind of thing I just assume a mobile keyboard autocorrected. It's a forum, not a publication. Armchair editors need not apply.

Your assumption is fair, and feedback is generally welcomed, but this kind of opinion is not helpful or solicited. Some people may not know the correct spelling.

Min/Max... That's exactly what happened. The beauties of typing this on an iPad ;)

You could have stopped after the first sentence.

Yes, but apparently you put the family name first in Japan.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com