Re: Naming NAME fields (was RE: Coordinating Field Defs and Procedura l Info

Subject: Re: Naming NAME fields (was RE: Coordinating Field Defs and Procedura l Info
From: Janice Gelb <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 13:51:19 +1100

mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com wrote:


The above exchange raised a hackle or two, not directly related to the thread (so I changed the thread name).

Given the number of Chinese and other ethnicities that might be using your product, wouldn't it be better to differentiate names by "Family Name" and "Given Name(s)" instead of the rather provincial "First Name" "Last Name"?


That would depend on what that number is, wouldn't it?
And also what the number of people is who are likely to
be using the product who are used to Western naming
conventions even if they are not Westerners.

Even if you were to resort to guessing, I'd guess that
the percentage of non-Westerners confused by the common
Western terminology FirstName/Last Name, especially when
presented in English language forms or dialog boxes, is
less than or equal to the percentage of Westerners who
would be confused by the less common terminology Family
Name/Given Name. And that percentage for non-Westerners
probably goes down even further if the product in
question is related to somewhat advanced technology.

>
> How well do you react when somebody phones saying:
> "I'd like to speak to Mr. Dan, please"?
>

About the same way I reacted when an admin at my company's
branch in Bangalore, India, sent an email message that
addressed me as "Mr. Janice" -- that some cultural glitch
had occurred that could be relatively easily straightened
out.

-- Janice

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Naming NAME fields (was RE: Coordinating Field Defs and Procedura l Info: From: mlist

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