One of the core tenets of globalization and localizability of software is that making assumptions in formatting information will lead to bugs and limitations that will keep people in other cultures from properly using the software.
There are two sides to this.
On the globalization side, there is (for example) the formatting of numbers, dates, and times. There is the sorting of lists, and so on.
On the localizability side, there is (for example) assumptions about word order in inserts that would violate the grammar of the target language (leading in many cases to grammatically poor sentences in the target language in order to accommodate the badly placed inserts).
Then there are examples that actually span both globalization and localizability, like the names of people.
I can't imagine what people do when they have to enter their name in an online form that insists on a name that is made of a single word first name, possibly a middle initial, and a single word last name -- none containing any punctuation.
Right in Windows International we have many examples of names that violate such simplistic rules (rules which, though easing the complexity of software development and database storage, blithely ignores the reality of names throughout the world).
Take for example Group Manager Jan Roelof Falkena.
His last name is Falkena.
Now in Jan Roelof's own words, "The use of double names (without hyphens) is fairly common back home."
Thus his first name is not merely Jan, any more than Captain Jean-Luc Picard's first name is Jean. and putting Jan R. Falkena in such a form would be ridiculous, and not at all how his parents or he would have wanted his name expressed.
Or take Test Lead Gerardo Villarreal Guzman.
His first name is Gerardo.
His last name is derived half from his father's name (Villarreal) and his mother's (Guzman). The hyphen is not used between these two halves, and the name itself becomes an interesting symbol of what singer/songwriter Gavin DeGraw referred to as "the birth of two souls in one". Which in my opinion is actually kind of a nice thing, culturally speaking.
Now coming to the USA and knowing how inflexible so many process are about names, he might easily have been willing to simply go by Gerardo Villarreal and saved himself the grief (that is, for example, his name on Facebook), though the fact that Gerardo Villarreal Guzman is the name on his passport made that much more problematic for the company address book in other such places.
To extend this a little bit, Gerardo Villarreal Guzman is married to Hortensia Ortiz Roffe.
Their children are:
- David Villarreal Ortiz
- Paola Villarreal Ortiz
Now the dropping of the maternally derived surnames from both parent's names is common and if you think about is one of the only way to really scale names across many generations, as I am sure neither David Villarreal Guzman Ortiz Roffe nor Paola Villarreal Guzman Ortiz Roffe would be terribly hasppy having to fill out forms with their names in them! :-)
Though interestingly, when the names are more well-known due to political or economic or cultural influences the full name sometimes is retained, and in that case hyphenated -- thus if Gerardo were famous his children might be David and Paola Villarreal-Guzman Ortiz, or alternately if Hortensia were famous might have led to their names being David and Paola Villarreal Ortiz-Roffe.
Though one could take such a practice with a cynical eye and look at it as a form of snobbery, I'd rather give such a practice a more culturally kind eye and look at it as just remembering identities that could have unique significance to others in the future.
Even the other names mentioned above, from the fictional hyphenated French name Jean-Luc Picard (who would have to deal with the indignity of the Risa planetary computer system not allowing the hyphen) to the singer/songwriter Gavin DeGraw (who might sometimes be forced to go by Degraw due to a system not remembering the case of letters in the name -- which sucks -- or worse titlecasing -- which also sucks).
And then there are readers of this blog like Gé van Gasteren and Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven, both having names that would confound these systems.
Or the way Japanese names are usually given in the form <family name> <given name>, well other than the imperial family.
Or the different practices used in North and South India (the latter often not including a surname).
The list could go on for hours -- I could have even included more specific examples like I did with Gerardo and Jan Roelof if I had more time to ask people for permission to "use" their names for more extended analysis).
The fact is, the simplified structure of names "used in the United States" is kind of a lie anyway since many of these people live in the US.
And thus while falling under the theoretical heading of a localizability issue, is probably better thought of as an issue that is important independent of the need to prepare for localization since this flexibility is required even in products that are not being localized, or in non-localized versions of products.
Though it is also important in localization, so that localizers can reposition controls to meet the most common expectations for a target language.
Which I guess gets back to answering the question What's in a name?
Respect, or the lack thereof....
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