No more "Christian name, sir?" in Kent, UK

[Victor Steinbok]

East Asians notwithstanding, Hungarians also write their given/family
names in reverse of Anglophone notation, unless prompted to do otherwise
(and sometimes even then ;-)--e.g., you will see Nepes Gyorgy and Kiraly
Janos instead of what we would write as Gyorgy Nepes and Janos Kiraly
(or, to make things even more complicated, George Nepes and John
Kiraly). It is quite common to find this happening on various lists and
databases and causes endless confusion. I am used to Hungarians doing
that, but it still gets weird when an ethnic Czech or Romanian name
appears on a Hungarian list in the formal Hungarian order.

And Hungarians are not alone--in many Slavic cultures the names are
reversed in formal situations even if they would not be under ordinary
circumstances. The issue is not Chinese and Hungarians understanding the
distinction we give to the two sets of names--it is /us/ understanding
them. And, far too often, ignorance prevails. Now, there is further
confusion with Chinese--not because of understanding, but because of
recently developed cultural quirks. A number of Chinese students told me
that even among the young Chinese who have never been outside the
country there is a trend to create Western names that correspond to
their given names, i.e., Chan Weilin will pass herself as Eileen, etc.
This could actually get interesting because when someone asks for
"Christian name" such a person is likely to give the "European" sounding
name rather than the original given name. One student refused to get
into the details of his legal name and demanded that everyone call him
Fred, which cause endless problems because no official records existed
that identified him as Fred.

     VS-)

On 3/27/2010 7:50 PM, Judy Prince wrote:
> Indeed, Joel.
>
> I'm familiar with some spoken (Beijing-hwa) and written Chinese.  Typically,
> I've found that the Chinese know well that our "first name, last name" is
> the reverse of their "family name, 'given name'".  Hence, they are not
> confused about our names, but we are Very Confused with theirs since not
> only do few USAmericans know the Chinese tradition of placing the family
> name first, but few of us speak Chinese, (though many Chinese speak
> English), so we gather no clues from the names as to their "family-ness" or
> "given name-ness".  Often, a Chinese will introduce herself here using our
> tradition.
>
> As some people would say:  "Another example of American exceptionalism."
>
> Best,
>
> Judy
>
>
>
> On 27 March 2010 19:39, Joel S. Berson<Berson at att.net>  wrote:
>
>
>
>> At 3/27/2010 07:59 AM, Judy Prince wrote:
>>
>>> "First name" works nicely.
>>>
>> But, like "forename", not for the traditional Chinese and several
>> other cultures (when they're giving their name in answer to being
>> questioned in English).
>>
>> Joel

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