Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces

Re:Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” whe... by Semiapies on Thursday August 31, 2023 @09:23AM (#37336780)

Not universally, no. The closest for English-language use is to put a spurious comma between family and given name (e.g., "Cixin, Liu" for Cixin Liu).

In an ebook management system I've been developing, I use a full_name and a sort_name field for authors/editors/contributors, because books are a reasonable thing to want to sort by author names.

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Re:Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” whe... by smeej on Thursday August 31, 2023 @09:43AM (#37337045)

Even this has some culturally confusing elements, doesn't it?

For example, in my studies I had cause to read many books by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Nobody ever referred to him as "von Balthasar," just "Balthasar," but his books were always sorted by the "von."

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Re:Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” whe... by rsynnott on Thursday August 31, 2023 @10:07AM (#37337354)

> Nobody ever referred to him as "von Balthasar," just "Balthasar," but his books were always sorted by the "von."

I'm pretty sure I've seen a by-name sorting scheme that excludes these sorts of prefixes for alphabetisation purposes. Of course, then you have to second guess whether you are using such a sorting system :)

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Re:Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” whe... by TRiG_Ireland on Thursday August 31, 2023 @03:31PM (#37342500)

I believe that the von should be included in sorting in some languages and not in others. It's a Dutch/German difference, though I cannot recall which is which.

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Re:Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” whe... by Semiapies on Thursday August 31, 2023 @09:58AM (#37337234)

Even this has some culturally confusing elements, doesn't it?

It's never not going to.

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