Name Conventions by T.W.Tan Associate Director, Centre for Internet Research Director, Bioinformatics Centre National University of Singapore and Chairman, Asia Pacific Networking Group Area Co-Director, Asia Pacific Advanced Network Consortium Introduction ------------ The way we are addressed is one of the more personal and often sensitive things which we wish others would get right the first time. We mean our names: we wish it not to be misunderstood, misspelt, mispronounced or misused by others, if we could help it. Among many cultures in non-Western nations, the more commonly known name convention of "given name" followed by "surname" is not necessarily adopted. In order to prevent embarrassment, faux pas or any problems, we (originally with Dr Peter Tan, NUS) have written this short article. If there are any inaccuracies particularly those detected by the experts in name convention of other cultures, we would appreciate it if you could inform us so that we can make the appropriate revisions. Western name convention ----------------------- Names adopted by people of Western nations generally come in two major parts, the given name, which comes first, alternatively known as the first name, the personal name or the Christian name, and the last name or the surname or the family name. Famous examples would be those of national leaders such as Bill (given name) Clinton (family name) or John (given name) Major (family name). If there are additional names, these would be placed in the middle, for example Martin Luther (middle name) King, after the first name, and before the last name. When abbreviated, it would become "M.L.King" and so on. Names of married women ---------------------- Women may also retain their maiden (sur)name as their middle name after marriage; for instance, Hillary Rodham Clinton uses her husband's surname Clinton as her own, and her original surname "Rodham" as her middle name. If a woman originally has a middle name, she may keep that, such as Laura E. Quarterman where E. for Elizabeth, is the maiden middle name, with the woman's family name entirely replaced by that of the husband, as pointed out to us by John Quarterman of Texas Internet Consulting (jsq@tic.com). Double-barrelled surnames, often used by English gentility, are another variation. For instance, when Jane Smith married John Jones, they may agree to have their surnames fused ie. Jane Jones-Smith, and their children henceforth known by the double surname Jones-Smith, or Smith-Jones. Married women who take on their husbands' surnames can still indicate their maiden names in other ways. For instance, when Mary Jones married John Smith, she may call herself Mrs John Smith. Mark Anbinder points out that if she were widowed or divorced, she may refer to herself as Mrs Mary Smith (but these days, this practice is fairly common among many, regardless of the woman's status). If, however, she wants to indicate her maiden name, she may write "Mary Smith nee Jones" or "Mary Smith (Jones)". (The word "nee" means "born" in French.) For instance, Homerton College, Cambridge University in England uses the latter convention in its publications. Karen Jensen reminds us of a newly evolving convention, which is becoming more and more common: that of a woman retaining her original surname when she marries. For example, when she married Ron Coles, she made no change in her name. Therefore, there is no way for anyone to know that she is married unless they were to see the written form "Mrs Karen Jensen", whereby one might mistakenly assume that her husband's surname was "Jensen". At social gatherings, her husband will introduce her to his colleagues and acquaintances thus: "This is my wife, Karen Jensen". This is particularly popular among professionally employed women and those who marry later in life, although not necessarily so. One reason may be that they would have achieved professional significance with their names and would wish to retain the original form of their names for convenience. Thus if one has published widely, the retention of one's own name will maintain continuity and certainly avoid confusion. Although this convention is becoming widespread in America, there are examples elsewhere, for instance, a colleague of ours at the National University of Singapore, Dr K.L. Chua, remained Dr Chua, even though she married Dr T.M.Lim, and similarly Dr J.L.Ding with Dr B.Ho. I am also given to understand that in China, this is the convention and that married women do not alter their names at all. Other name conventions ---------------------- Some peoples do not retain a surname or family name which is preserved from generation to generation. They refer to so-and-so son/daughter of so-and-so. Examples come from India, Israel, the Arab nations, Malaysia and so on. For instance, the Malay name Ibrahim bin Abdul Kadir would mean Ibrahim, son of Abdul Kadir, and the woman's name Fatihah binte (or bte) Ithnin would mean Fatihah, daughter of Ithnin. When abbreviated, especially in journals, the names will appear as Ibrahim Abdul Kadir, or I. Abdul Kadir, and Fatihah Ithnin. Women, at least in Malaysia and Singapore, when married, still retain their full names, such that there is usually no way of knowing if she is married or not, unless the honorific gives her status away. In the telephone book, the examples given above will appear under I for Ibrahim and F for Fatihah. They would be addressed as Encik (Enche) Ibrahim and Puan Fatihah, respectively. For unmarried men and women, it is possible to address them with the honorifics, Saudara and Saudari, respectively, although this is not common in Singapore. In Arab nations, "bin" would be rendered "ibn", and in Israel, "bin" would be rendered "ben" and so on. Names from the Indian subcontinent such as Subbiah Subramaniam would be Subramaniam, son of Subbiah, and correspondingly abbreviated as S.Subbiah, under the Western convention. However, according to N.Sathyanarayanan (sathya@vbirch.ce.vt.edu), who is from Tamilnadu, a province in India, his initials "N" refer to his father's name, "P.N.Narayanaswamy", and the "P.N." initials of his father's name come from Pazhayanur, a place name, and his grandfather's name respectively. Hence this is quite the opposite of the western convention in which one's initials are those of one's name. So in the earlier example, S.Subbiah (western convention) would actually be called S.Subramaniam in his home country, Subramaniam being his given name, and "S." referring to his father's name. Scottish and Gaelic conventions ------------------------------- David R. Micklem, of the Wellcome/CRC Institute in Cambridge, UK (drm21@mbuk.bio.cam.ac.uk) tells us that some European names have this pattern. Irish and Scottish names such as Sean O'Keefe, Ryan O'Neal, Ronald MacDonald, John McIntyre and so on, are names that include a reference to the a parent or a place name. Thus "O'Keefe" might mean "from Keefe" or "son of Keefe", or "of Keefe" (says Keith Robison - robison@biosun.harvard.edu), just like the "Mac" or "Mc" in Scottish names. C.J. O'Kane confirms this: "O'" means grandson in Gaelic and surnames with this prefix signifies Irish origin. Thus, the surname "O'Keefe" indicates that centuries ago in Ireland, somebody who first adopted the name had a grandfather named Keefe, or the English transcription of the Gaelic. "Mac" on the other hand means son in Gaelic. Generally speaking, those with "Mac" in their surnames suggest Scottish origin while those with "Mc" suggest Irish origin. Thus "MacDonald" will be the equivalent of the English name, "Donaldson". Western European Conventions ---------------------------- In some Germanic languages, "van der" of "Peter van der Zee" would refer to "Peter from the Sea". In the same way, "von" or "van" in say, "Emil von Kruppen" or "Hans van Houten" would have similar meanings, ie. "from", just as the Latin-based languages have the equivalent in "de la" as in "Louis de la Maza". Many of these have become permanent family names or full-fledged surnames which do not change from generation to generation. Reference to people with such names for instance, would be "Professor van der Ley", "Mr van Houten" or "Dr van der Zee" or "Dr von Braun". Keith Robison also notes that in alphabetical listings, say in dictionaries or in telephone books, "Mac", "Mc" and "O" are significant, whereas the rest which are in lower case are not. Thus "van der Waals" would be listed under "W"; "Mac", "Mc" or "M'" as in MacLeod, McLeod or M'Leod (pronounced "Mur-Cloud") would be listed as if they were all spelt "Mac". Sometimes, as John Quarterman (jsq@tic.com) of Texas Internet Consulting points out, it depends on the person's wishes, for instance, Frank da Cruz may insist on being listed under "D". Nico van Belzen, Dept of Pathology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands (vanbelzen@pa1.fgg.eur.nl) informs us that in Dutch, it is not uncommon to address Dr van Houten with capitalised "v", as in "Dr Van Houten" unless it comes with the given name. References in Dutch (and in some English publications) would become (Houten, H.van and Ley, P.van der, 1993), for instance. The reference (Van Houten, H. and Van der Ley, P., 1993) also occurs. John Quarterman also mentions the possibility that the given name may be Van, as in Van Jacobson, being a Norse or Swedish name, and not a German or Dutch one; and if it is Danish, it would probably be rendered Jacobsen. Spanish and Portugeuse conventions ---------------------------------- In some parts of Europe and in Latin America, some names come in three parts, for example, Derlene Silva Attili. Derlene would be the given name, the maternal name would be Silva and the paternal name would be Attili. So when abbreviated, it becomes D.S.Attili which would not pose too much of a problem. This convention seems to be prevalent among the Portuguese-speaking such as those in Brazil. After she got married, her name changed to Derlene Attili (from father) de Angelis (from husband), and so mother's surname was dropped (that's the common way in Brazil). In fact, professionally speaking, she still signs herself as Derlene Silva Attili as she is more well known by it. Interestingly, her son Gabriel is named Gabriel Attili de Angelis. So it turns out that the originally paternal surname of the mother now becomes the maternal surname of the son. The Spanish convention of Jose Marti y Diaz, for instance, is similar: given name, followed by maternal name and finally the paternal name. Many prefer to leave off the paternal name, some the maternal name, or sort the names under one or the other, so John Quarterman tells us. However, in some cases, for example in Mexico, the order is given name first, with the next two reversed, i.e. paternal surname and then the maternal surname. From Mexico, Suzanne Stephens tells me of the names of her family members as an example of name conventions there which is common among the Spanish-speaking in Central and South America as well: Her husband's name is Carlos Castellanos, and her name is Suzanne Stephens. Their children are called Isabel Castellanos Stephens and Carlos Castellanos Stephens. If Isabel married a man called Roberto López Gutiérrez, for example, their children's surnames would be López Castellanos. If Carlos married a woman called Ana Bolaños Toussaint, then their children's surname would be Castellanos Bolaños. As you can see, a surname is made up of the paternal surnames of both the father and the mother, with the father's paternal surname preceding that of the mother. In Mexico, a married woman may choose to be addressed in up to three ways. The traditional way is to attach the husband's name to the end of one's name. Thus, she could be addressed as Suzanne Stephens de Castellanos, literally "of" Castellanos. However, professional women in Mexico often choose to go by their maiden names, as this is the name that generally appears on degree certificates and other qualifications, so, for example, Suzanne Stephens appears on her business cards. Strangely enough, just when certain professional women are deciding to retain their maiden names, other women have decided that they wish to drop their surname and adopt their husband's surname. Thus, a women called Guadalupe Ramos, who marries a man called Juan González, may decide to be addressed as Guadalupe González. Divorced women often revert to using their maiden names, while widows may be addressed as Señora Claudia Ramírez, viuda de Ayala, i.e. widow of Ayala. Central Eastern European Conventions ------------------------------------ The Slavic convention, too, is a little similar. For example, say Olga Aleksandrovna Romanov: the middle name refers to her mother, Aleksandra, so I was told. However, for Sergei Aleksandrovich Romanov, the middle name refers to his father, Aleksander, but in familiar speech or writing, the family name Romanov may find itself omitted. According Andrei Mikheev who wrote to me, "this is actually not entirely correct since female middle name comes from the father rather than mother so for Olga Aleksandrovna Romanov (actually it should be Romanova - female surname) the middle name refers to her father, Alexander." French Conventions ------------------ The French convention of writing names is also worthy of note. French pupils are taught always to write their surnames in capital letters. Very often this takes first position, especially in official documents and forms, so that a name like "Hercule Poirot" (who is a Belgian, as any Agatha Christie fan would know) would appear officially "POIROT Hercule". This practice is naturally adopted by Francophone Africa. John Quarterman recounts an interesting story about names there. There, too, the written convention is to have the family name first, generally a short one, like BAH (referring to a totemic plant or animal) and a longer personal name, like Amadouh. The official version of this name would be "BAH Amadouh". When John Quarterman wrote his name in the English convention in Francophone Africa, his personal name was mistaken for his surname, as he got addressed as "Monsieur Jean". Names in Eastern cultures ------------------------- With Eastern cultures, the name convention of having surnames in front applies as well. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese names etc. (but incidentally, not Thai names) have their family names at the beginning, not unlike the French convention or the Tamil convention, S.Subramanian, mentioned earlier. Here are some examples. eg. Mao Tse Tung - Mao is the surname/family name. Sun Yat Sen - Sun is surname. Roh Tae Woh - Korean president Roh - surname. Ho Chi Minh - Ho is surname. Lee Kuan Yew - Lee is surname. Deng Xiaoping - Deng is surname, Xiaoping is the Hanyu Pinyin romanised equivalent of the Chinese characters. Sugawara Hideaki - Sugawara is the family name and Hideaki the given name. In their traditional characters, Chinese surnames are placed in front followed by a generational name (ie siblings and cousins all have this same name) and the given name - hence a three-part name. For instance with my name, Tan is the surname, Tin is the generational name in which my siblings and my cousins all have, and Wee is the given name. This is not always the case, as many families do not adopt or adhere to the generational name in which case, the middle name becomes the first part of the given name. Some names have the middle name entirely omitted, merely have a two-part name eg. Li Peng (Li is the family surname). When addressing a person by the given name, it is usual to refer to both the generational/middle/first part of given name, followed by the last name or given name, ie. if you were on "first name" terms with me, you would call me Tin Wee, or Tin-Wee. Notice that sometimes they are hyphenated. Romanisation of Chinese names ----------------------------- An additional complication is the fact that the romanised words of Chinese names come in several variations, depending on which phonetic system you use. So my name Tan Tin Wee is actually a transliteration of the Hokkien pronunciation of the Chinese characters (which cannot be reproduced here in ASCII!) The Hanyu Pinyin system would render these same characters Chen Dingwei (or more accurately with the tonal indicators 0 to 4 Chen2 Ding4wei3). So Deng Xiaoping would be the Hanyu Pinyin system's rendering and Mao Tse Tung (in the Wade-Giles romanization system) would become Mao Zedong. Incidentally, David Coder (dcoder@u.washington.edu) reminds me that the Wade-Giles system is still prevalent in Taiwan; so if you spot a Chinese name that looks like it has been transliterated in the Wade-Giles sytstem, your first guess would be that the owner or his parents came from Taiwan. Incidentally, place names in Taiwan are in the Wade-Giles system, eg. Taipei (not Taibei), Taichung (not Taizhong), Kaohsiung (not Gaoxiong). However, this is not always the case as the Chinese diaspora is altogether far too complex for any generalisations to be safely made. In recent years, the Hanyu Pinyin system has increasingly gained recognition as a standard. How does one's romanised name come about ---------------------------------------- It helps to avoid confusion by knowing how the romanization happens. A typical situation goes like this. You have a baby and need to get it a birth certificate. Not knowing English, you try your best at the Registrar of Births to pronounce the name you have given the baby. So the Cantonese will call their child (say if it were the first author of this article - TTW) something like Chan Teng Wai, and if the translator who happened to be around was Mandarin-speaking, would say, Chen Ding Wei, and if Hokkien-speaking, would say Tan Teng Oui (like the French for "yes"), and then, the person recording it will try his/her best to transliterate that. So it can just as easily become Tan Teng Wee as Tan Tin Wee, often depending on how acute the auditory sense is. Of course in TTW's case, his parents were educated and "Tan Tin Wee" was their choice (not really, for both the generational name and its transliteration had been fixed when the firstborn of TTW's first uncle on his father's side got his name registered). There have been cases, for example, where brothers whose surnames on their birth certificates are variously Yieh, Yap, Yip, Yeap, Yit, Ip, and if you try pronouncing them, you begin to realise how these emerged... at the Registrar of Births and at the hospital. Indeed, anecdotes abound at the Registrar's office. The father of the original second author, Peter Tan, was given the Hokkien transliteration Tan Chong Yau, which was transformed to Tan Chong Yew (Yew being the Cantonese pronunciation) when he settled in Kuala Lumpur (Chinese there predominantly Cantonese speaking), capital of Malaysia. A great-uncle was transformed from a "Tan" to a "Chan" (which is the Cantonese pronunciation of the surname)! From the transliteration, one can usually tell which dialect one belongs to, if the Chinese standard characters are known, simply because one can guess how the different dialect groups would pronounce the characters. However, the same transliteration does not always refer to the same Chinese characters behind it all, because of the many homophones in the Chinese language. The surname "Ng", may actually refer to different surnames, eg. Huang2, Wu2, Wu3, it is just that when pronounced in the dialect, they end up sounding like "Ng". Similarly, "Ong" may actually be either Wang2, Weng1 or Hong2 (in the Hanyu Pinyin system). For those in Mainland China, they may not ever have to have an official romanised name. If they wish to get a passport to travel overseas, the romanised name is automatically the Hanyu Pinyin equivalent (without the tonal indicators, 0 to 4) of the Chinese characters. The story goes that the former President of the Philippines, Corazon Aquino's family name, Cojuangco, (the husband's surname was Aquino) came about when the patriach, of Chinese stock, wanted to register the children's names, the registrar heard the complete name of the patriach as Koh Huan Ko, and transliterated it as Spanish speaking people would, as Cojuangco. So to follow the convention of sticking the name of the father at the end, Cojuangco, became the family surname. Similarly for many Chinese in countries where the convention of using the father's name as the second name, eg in many African countries, such composite surnames are common. One Mauritian example would be Caroline Laitung - her father's full name being Lai Tung in Chinese. And so, for subsequent generations, Laitung will probably become the surname. Order of the Asian names ------------------------ An Asian in the west would often reverse the order of the name towards the western convention, eg. Tin-Wee Tan, and abbreviated T.W.Tan or T.-W.Tan. This, however, should not be confused to names of certain married women who may wish to adopt the English double-barrelled surname convention, for instance, when A.B. Lim married Lee Suan Leng, Suan Leng may well have decided to be addressed as Mrs Lim-Lee Suan Leng, or worse, Mrs Lim-Lee Suan-Leng, or Mrs S.L.Lim-Lee, or Mrs A.B.Lim (after her husband's name) and so on. Again, it is basically impossible to know unless you already know which is which. Often, for fellow countrymen, we could make an intelligent guess, but for others, just enquire discreetly or wait till somebody else addresses her with no apparent adverse reaction and quickly follow suit. By the way, it should be noted that although most Chinese surnames are single character, (and single syllable as all Chinese characters have only one syllable), there are cases when they are double character, for example, Ouyang or Owyang, and Seetoh or Seetou, etc. For the Japanese, it is common to see their names, usually in two parts, already reversed in order, eg. Hideaki Sugawara or H.Sugawara, but when they speak their names to each other in Japanese, they would naturally retain the original order of family name first followed by the given name, ie. Sugawara Hideaki. Again, as with Chinese names, these romanised forms (or Romaji) are based on the Japanese pronunciation of the Kanji (Chinese) characters. (Note that Japanese pronunciation may have more than one syllable per character.) This will become clear when you study their business cards, on one side the Japanese name in Kanji following the surname first convention, and on the other side of the card, the Western surname last convention in Romaji (ie. the Latin/Roman alphabet). One will therefore address Dr Sugawara as Sugawara-san, or Sugawara-sensei, if he is a professor. If you know him very well, you may call him Hideaki. John Quarterman adds that if you know some Japanese very well, you may even add the "chan" honorific, appended to the given name, not the surname and that reads more or less like calling someone Jane-girl or John-boy, except not quite that familiar. Hence, it should never be used with strangers, older people, grown men or in formal situations. Westernised Asian names ----------------------- Even more complications arise when Asians adopt Western or Christian names, whether they convert to Christianity or not. Take the following example: Harry Lee Kuan Yew - Harry is the Christian / Western name. and people write their names this way or sometimes Harry K.Y.Lee, or more rarely especially while in the west, Harry Kuan Yew Lee, or Harry Kuan-Yew Lee. Sometimes to avoid confusion completely, the Chinese given names are dropped entirely, eg. Bruce Lee. But if a Chinese woman who took a Western first name and later married a Westerner, says Dr Guang YANG (gyang@comptel.unh.edu), all traces of the Asian name may be lost; for instance, if Ms. Betty Bao married Mr Lord, then she would become Mrs Betty Lord or Betty B. Lord. Alternatively, there have been cases when given names when transliterated are approximated to a Western equivalent. For example, Wong Pin Da in Cantonese transliteration, may well be rendered Pin Da Wong in the way of the western convention, fusing the name together, makes a nice Western name Pindar Wong! Wu Da Wei becomes DaWei Wu, or David Wu. and Tan Ai Lin, may well become Ai Lin Tan or Aileen Tan! Therefore, be warned that some folks have reversed the order to adopt the western convention of having surnames the last name in order to avoid (!) confusion by westerners, for example, Dr Yang, in the previous paragraph. So when encountering an Asian name, check to find out which is the surname or family name. Address the person with the honorific followed by the surname eg "Mr Lee", or "Dr Tan". To friends, one might be known by the given names; for example a greeting might be "Hello Tin Wee", or even "Wee" or "Ah Wee" (only for Chinese names) to relatives, but of course, these are minute details of passing interest. To avoid confusion, some Asians have the family name underlined. Alternatively the family name is entirely capitalised, like in the French convention. Or else, look for the abbreviation, eg. T.W.Tan would indicate that Tan is my surname. All this business about names and name convention is pretty complicated and bewildering at times. There are no simple guides or failsafe procedures. Hopefully, we won't offend folks whose names we mangle too much, for after all, What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, II.ii ----------------------------------- For correspondence, errors, omissions or additions, please write to: Dr Tan Tin Wee National University of Singapore Tel=(65)-7747149 Int=tinwee@pobox.org.sg Acknowledgements ---------------- The following have spoken or written to us/me personally to confirm some of the above information and to enlighten us on some other details which we have included above, with the appropriate attribution. John S. Quarterman, Texas Internet Consulting (TIC), Austin, Texas, USA. Steve McKinty, Sun Microsystems ICNC, France N.Sathyanarayanan (sathya@vbirch.ce.vt.edu) David R. Micklem, Wellcome/CRC Institute, Cambridge, UK. Nico van Belzen (vanbelzen@pa1.fgg.eur.nl) Keith Robison (robison@biosun.harvard.edu) C.J.O'Kane (lsrfe@csv.warwick.ac.uk) Fatihah binte Ithnin and Rosliza binte Kanawi David Coder, Director, Cell Analysis Facility, Dept of Immunology, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, USA (dcoder@u.washigton.edu) Guang YANG, Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, (gyang@comptel.unh.edu) Tan Chor Mui and See Meng Hong Karen Jensen (karen_jensen@csufresno.edu) Professor of Communicative Disorders, California State University, Fresno. Mark H. Anbinder Director of Technical Services, Baka Industries, Ithaca, NY. Andrei Mikheev (mikheev@harlequin.co.uk) Suzanne Stephens (castephe@compuserve.com.mx) Derlene A. and Abel de Angelis (dsattili@carpa.ciagri.usp.br) Note: Original manuscript jointly authored by Tan Tin Wee and Peter K.W. Tan. ____________________ End of manuscript (tinwee@pobox.org.sg)