First name, last name - what do you do when your culture doesn't have them?

[matt]

Re: http://www.englishforum.ch/permits-visas-government/49433-name-chaos-indian-passport-switzerland.htm...

Some Western countries require a first name, last name. So what do our colleagues who's culture doesn't have this do when they come to the West?

matt

[rejish_balakrishnan]

Hi all,

could any body guess wt is my name ?

[former_member205352]

>

> Hi all,
> 
> could any body guess wt is my name  ?

RBK ---> Reebok

[JPReyes]

could any body guess wt is my name ?

My guess will be Rejish

[rejish_balakrishnan]

hi Reyes ,

u r partly correct ..

could u guess my other half ?

[GauthamV]

?

[former_member188685]

We Moderators knows about your complete information.

So Don't think no one knows about RBK.

[JPReyes]

I know the other half... its on your registered email... beside that you already mentioned it on the other thread... 😄

Regards

Juan

PS: My name is Juan, Reyes is my lastname.

[rejish_balakrishnan]

we'll we'll ..

I dont know that u could get my other half thro ma mail address "The great moderators of sdn "

But i was predicting some answers like "Rejish Became the King" or something like that .

Hope anyone who replied to this would know about Lexigramming ?

I believe Matt would be knowing it ..he is the one who answer all threads with patience ( i mean who knows everything ).

[former_member181995]

>

> could any body guess wt is my name  ?

Right Below Knee?

[Former Member]

> PS: My name is Juan, Reyes is my lastname.

Pablo ?? your Middle name?

Cheers

Andrew

[JPReyes]

Yes...

I guess I'll have to hide my public mail address now.. 😄

Regards

Juan

[rejish_balakrishnan]

well said juan .. privacy issue ... . hope some abap coding might help to do the same ..

[Former Member]

... hope some abap coding might help to do the same ..

to do the same as who? or what? oh, that was another discussion

[Former Member]

>

> I guess I'll have to hide my public mail address now..  
> 

ofcourse it is already a Public mail address..then why do you want to hide.

Cheers

Andrew

[former_member583013]

In Peru, the most common thing is to use the first name and last name, like in:

Alvaro Tejada

But I always used my first name, last name and my mothers last name...

Alvaro Tejada Galindo

Just to not be confused with others...

Greetings,

Blag.

[GrahamRobbo]

Trying to figure out how Blag could be confused with others.

[Former Member]

Perhaps, we should have a global ID system - just as what jimbo said: Avatars. Use online gaming style of naming like: "ILikePizzaMoreThanABAP" ....

kidding. 😛

[Former Member]

Here I've seen many foreigners in an attempt to avoid confusion and logistic problems correct their names adding their motheru2019s last name to comply with the formal Spanish naming rules. Iu2019ve seen this with Asian and European people.

However some donu2019t and the people capturing their data go crazy.

Iu2019ve also been in the necessity of reducing my name to comply with the English naming rules.

Iu2019m also interested if this things (increasing or reducing your name in other countries) could get you in legal troubles, since you are not actually using your real name

[Former Member]

Hi,

Anyone from Madagascar here ?

We have a few colleagues from Madagascar and usually their Lastname is so long that it is impossible to enter it in a computer form and that the average Frenchman (myself included) is unable to pronounce it.

They just shorten their names with the first 3 syllabus and the problem is solved !

[Former Member]

Why not let everybody use AVATARS. Problem solved.

Cheers

jimbo

[former_member184657]

Did this thread fade from your memory already?

pk

[Former Member]

that was a loooong discussion gone before.. unfortunately that thread never got into my sight till now..good one to know the different naming conventions..Thanks for bringing into light Kishan (guess calling you like that brings on ur face).

Cheers

Andrew

[Former Member]

From where I am from, I believe everybody's names are already westernized. (Unless some family names their child "Dragon")

This issue leaves me to wonder on how are they going to properly ID their population. In practice, we search or look-up either manually (phone book) or digitally by either first name and/or last name -- but even if you have figured a workaround how you are going to place it in the database, you still are going to be troubled with proper indexing or functional search. If your population has almost a billion people and even 0.01 % of which are named "Mehul" -- how in the world are you going to find the actual record that you're looking for? Include in the search index: "loves pizza"?

Also, say you don't have a first and a last name.. let's call you "Seal" -- when you migrate to a country that requires you to have both - I believe you need "rename" yourself...to "Seal Hunter" or something.

I move for SAP to include a custom exception:

"WesternNameNullPointerException: Please contact your parents."

[Former Member]

Nowadays it became a common thing to name with 2 or 3 names(Japanese & Chinese names or exceptions).Even i have named my daughter with a First Name,Middle Name,Last Name(Surname).Just to make sure she stand a little taller in any name list.But it brought me problems too not with what Matt was saying but with the system of maintaining the name record in the country(Japan) i am working right now.They follow a different naming procedure with <Surname> coming first then comes the <First Name> and <Last Name>.

Ex.Normal Procedure - Anika (First Name) Melissia (Middle Name) Andrew (Lastname/Surname)

In Japan they follow - Andrew (First Name/Surname) Melissia (Middle Name) Anika (Last Name)

i have to be very careful in providing the information regarding my daughter's name.

As the population increasing at an alarming rate, and communication reaching its height..and transportation made so easy nowadays..so people flying east to west,north to south is very common and thus increases the complexity in maintaining the database @ several places.

Hope there will be a time where our identity is done only by our DNA pattern code which is the only unique identity available..

probably future names will sound like this <First Name> <Family or Last Name> <DNA Code>

Ex. DANIEL CRAIG ACGTGTCA

Cheers

Andrew

[Former Member]

Off topic, but anyway:

This reminds me of an event very early in my IT career when I worked in a production control environment. Late one night, we were processing a payroll when it blew itself out of the water. It took a while, but we finally determined that the problem was caused by a record for an employee with just one name. If I recall correctly, we created a new record with a dummy name.

Rob

[Former Member]

This might also explain why many SDN contributors from India call themselves Sri K. and Lakshmipathi G, etc?

Anyway, for SAP consultants this should not present too much of a problem after years of practice in SU01 where the fields are mandatory as well for creating a user ID.

In some countries, the ability to hold a screw driver the correct way round or successfully logon to a SAP system is sufficient to call yourself "Eng. Julius."

"Julius Jnr." or "Julius III" should be acceptable as well in the US.

The A-team also solved this problem years ago for [Mr. T|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T] ...

I don't see a problem which cannot be solved pragmatically by the applicant... particularly for an ABAP-team developer trapped in a government office with a fully functional but not yet compiled SAPForms development workbench...

Actually, I do the opposite regularly because I have a very long name which seldom fits into the fields of such forms. Unless of course I don't want to be able to fill it out correctly... like confessions for unfair traffic fines...

Cheers,

Julius

Edited by: Julius Bussche on Apr 22, 2009 9:02 PM

[Lakshmipathi]

This might also explain why many SDN contributors from India 
    call themselves Sri K. and Lakshmipathi G, etc?

In India, there is a culture of indicating the initial as the first letter of their father's name where in some country, it represents family name.

For me, G stands for my father name Ganesan but quite often, I have also come across people calling me as Ganesan instead of Lakshmipathi !!!!!!