Talk:Japanese name/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

New instructions from Japan

To what extent should account be taken of the new Japanese preferences for writing names with the family name first? See Foreign Minister Taro Kono to ask media to switch order of Japanese names.--Ipigott (talk) 07:52, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Based on some subsequent articles, the media hasn't adopted this yet. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:50, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

The Cabinet agreed in September 2019 that English translations of Japanese government documents should use the last name first. Promoted by Education Minister Shibayama Masahiko, and his ministry is said to have been quick to implement it on the ministerial website. I added a sentence to the article, with reference. But I am not sure of the best place for this information. There is no guarantee that it will percolate or "trickle down" to the rest of society. Vagabond nanoda (talk) 04:52, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Is the decree mentioned by The Economist available online? Apokrif (talk) 02:02, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

The official announcement of the Cabinet decision would be this one "公用文等における日本人の姓名のローマ字表記について" (October 25, 2019). This decree is officially effective since January 1, 2020. Education Minister Hagiuda Kōichi stated that MEXT, and more specifically the Japan Sports Agency, wants to standardize the notation of Japanese names on electronic displays and TV broadcasts and such, before the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games.

By the way, the National Language Council, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, issued a series of recommendations about language policy, and the Council called for adopting the Japanese name order (surname followed by the given name) in the page titled "姓名のローマ字表記についての考え方 " in 2000. The government decided to abide by this policy recommendation 20 years later. The Council argues that it is generally desirable to introduce and write each person's name in the native form, as in the cases of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Hungarian names. These linguists say, "everyone should be aware of linguistic and cultural diversity of human beings (including Japan's naming culture)."

I ask everyone here to change the current rule regarding Japanese names for the reasons below.

*International inconsistency: The Taiwanese President is called Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan or elsewhere, not Ing-wen, Tsai. There's no good reason to apply a different standard to Japanese names.

*Historical discontinuity: The current rule divides "historical figures" (before Meiji?) and their descendants even though they are directly related by blood. The Meiji government adopted the Western name order at the time when most Westerners had little knowledge about Japanese names. In the Rokumeikan era, the government started a series of Europeanization programs in order to revise the unequal treaties. This historical background no longer exists. We should not be bound by the naming rule influenced by 欧化主義 in the 19th century.

*Confusion: Asuka (name) is both a surname and a given name. Under the current rule, it's impossible to tell them apart without knowing the context.

I don't think English-speaking media corporations would ever address this problem. It would remain unresolved indefinitely. "Because CNN, the Economist, and other media outlets do so" is not a valid justification for the current rule anymore. Unlike the Meiji era, it's now easy to learn about Japanese names using various Internet services, like YouTube and especially Wikipedia. If someone has to decide the consistent rule somewhere, I think it's English Wikipedia.--Shinkansen Fan (talk) 15:06, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@Shinkansen Fan: The English Wikipedia gets its practices from the popular media. It didn't switch Kiev to Kyiv until the mass media already did so. From Talk:Kyiv it wasn't moved until 2020 (discussion here: Talk:Kyiv/Archive_7#Requested_move_1_July_2020 and there were many discussions before). The City of Kiev sent a letter to the WMF in 2015 but that did not budge the ENwiki userbase. It was changes in the BBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, etc. that did WhisperToMe (talk) 00:06, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

BTW RE: International consistency, Korean and Chinese names never did get "switched" like that because those countries interacted differently with the West. Sun Yat-sen is such, but Junichiro Koizumi is such because of Meiji. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:35, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: Why did the BBC and other media outlets switch to Kyiv? NATO's diplomatic support of Ukraine with regard to the Crimea conflict or something? I think this Japanese name order issue is similar to that of Hungary, rather than Korea or China. The government has asked foreign media outlets to write the family name first, but I guess we need a law amendment or something like that to determine the rule once and for all. Otherwise we would have to keep writing personal names, even fictional ones, in two forms (Western and Japanese) here. Shinkansen Fan (talk) 18:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@Shinkansen Fan: Talk:Kyiv/Archive_7#Requested_move_1_July_2020 has notes of when each organization switched to Kyiv. Several cite the fact Kyiv is the Ukranian (and not Russian) transliteration, several cite the Ukranian government, and several cite that other media organizations did it. There is a fuller document at Talk:Kyiv/sources keeping track of each of the media organizations. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:42, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: The Kyiv article says, "In 2018, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry launched #CorrectUA, an online campaign to promote the use of official Ukrainian spellings by countries and organizations, in place of 'outdated, Soviet-era' place-names." The Foreign Ministry's request has been triggered by the Crimea conflict with Russia.

In response to the following request, which is based on the romanization standard of Ukrainian names submitted by the Ukrainian government to the UN Economic and Social Council, the English-speaking media outlets have basically concurred.

"Under the Russian empire and later the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Russification was actively used as a tool to extinguish each constituent country’s national identity, culture and language. In light of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, including its illegal occupation of Crimea, we are once again experiencing Russification as a tactic that attempts to destabilize and delegitimize our country. You will appreciate, we hope, how the use of Soviet-era placenames – rooted in the Russian language – is especially painful and unacceptable to the people of Ukraine."

"To help avoid these mistakes, we refer you to p.27 of the Resolution X/9. Romanization of Ukrainian geographical names adopted by the 10th UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, which recommends the 'Romanization system in Ukraine' as the international system for the transliterations of Ukrainian geographical names."

In order to solve the problem of "outdated, Meiji-era" name order, I think the Japanese government needs to take two actions.

1. Amend laws and orders to set a standard of writing Japanese names in any language: surname first
2. Submit the new standard to the UN Economic and Social Council

Shinkansen Fan (talk) 18:57, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Yzo

Sukuna 112.198.70.181 (talk) 11:29, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

parallels …

Male names often end in -rō (郎, "son"), but also "clear, bright" (朗)

This looks funny, with one translation in parens and the other not; I'd make it –rō (郎 "son", but also 朗 "clear, bright"). I don't know how to make that nice with the language template. —Tamfang (talk) 03:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

idk if there's a mark as resolved button (??) but i fixed this 👍 Warpedtour08 (talk) 19:32, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Resolved

—Tamfang (talk) 04:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

子 history

While some people may still believe this, Lafcadio Hearn, in Shadowings, makes it clear that at least in his time (1880 to 1905, the date of publication), the ending -ko (子) was not any part of the name, but an honorific suffix like -san (さん).

The while clause is puzzling. If it means "this" is a misconception, what is "this"? The preceding paragraph provides no obvious candidate. My best guess is that "this" is what we are about to learn from Hearn (no wordplay intended), in which case while is inappropriate; I'd omit the preamble, or restructure the sentence thus:

Lafcadio Hearn, in Shadowings, makes it clear that at least in his time (1880 to 1905, the date of publication) the ending -ko (子) was not any part of the name, but an honorific suffix like -san (さん); and some people may still believe this.

But perhaps there is another explanation. —Tamfang (talk) 05:22, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Name order when using the Roman or English alphabet

At present the article lead had:

Nevertheless, when a Japanese name is written in the Roman alphabet, ever since the Meiji era, the official policy has been to reverse the order. As of 2019, the government has stated its intention to change this policy.

There are so many issues in that section that it seemed the only way to improve the article was to remove the text from the article.^[1]

• No sources are cited for what is claimed to be an official government policy.
• The 2019 Reuters article that is cited says "But beginning in the late 19th century, Japanese began adopting the Western custom of putting the given name first and family name second, at least when writing their names in English." That makes in seem like a practice adopted by individuals, likely when corresponding with westerners, to reduce confusion. The Reuters article never mentions that the name order was "policy." The article is about a suggestion by a government minister to use the traditional Japanese name order. Other ministers agreed to study the issue.

I thought about adding text to the article that when using Roman alphabet that some people follow the Japanese practice of writing the surname followed by the given name and others use the western practice of given name followed by the surname. I likely could have used the existing Reuters article though that one has weak support for that both versions of the naming order are in use. --Marc Kupper|talk 18:41, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I seem to remember reading that Abe Shinzo requested that foreign media stop turning names around. —Tamfang (talk) 05:24, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Update: I looked at the talk page archives and discovered that the 2019 suggestions were likely triggered by the then upcoming 2020 Summer Olympics to be held in Tokyo, Japan. More specifically, it was about showing Japanese names on electronic displays and TV broadcasts. Talk:Japanese name/Archive 2#New instructions from Japan has details but unfortunately I did not see anything that could be usefully added to the Wikipedia article in terms of how to write out names using the Roman alphabet. --Marc Kupper|talk 19:03, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

References