Ethnic naming conventions

[ThomasZloch]

Can some esteemed forum participant from India or adjacent countries shed some light on the first- and lastname logic in your part of the world?

Here, Prabhu Peram addresses Caroline Tubby as Tubby, although signing his own post with Prabhu (and not Peram, as could be "logically" derived).

I suppose Billing and Heeck could be interested as well.

Cheers

Thomas

[kakshat]

Wow! I never thought SCN could be so interesting. I see the original post dates back to 2008 but responses haven't stopped flowing. I guess this is one question on SCN no one wants 'Answered'.

Regards,

Akshat

(Another one from India whose first name is not really the first name)

[ThomasZloch]

Very likely because it was one of the few threads that was moved from (where all "old Coffee Corner" threads were moved during the SCN migration in March 2012) to the new and shiny , lifting the visibility somewhat.

If you find more threads in worth resurrecting then please add them to this document:

Thomas

[stephenjohannes]

There are also some threads in the coffee corner that were never meant to be fully answered.  As the coffee corner was for conversation and as long as there is something new to add, why not.

The other rule was as long as the conversation is polite and civil and stays within the general decency guidelines of the rules of engagement, it is impossible to have any discussion in the coffee corner go off-topic.   As there is no-central topic for the coffee corner(beyond everything else), the discussions could and would go any direction.  I know this would annoy/pester many people to have their thread devolve into something else, but to me that was the wonderful nature of the coffee corner.

Take care,

Stephen

[former_member181931]

Thank you for surfacing this old thread. Very interesting discussion.

I am French, like , and this is what I've observed in the countries I lived in for a significant time:

In France, as it has been said before, we use someone's FirstName when informal, and Mr/Ms/Mrs LastName when formal.

My first name is Laure and my last name is Cetin. Me too I have been called "Cetin" many times...

It could be close to "cretin" but luckily that has never happened since it's my married name and I didn't have to grow up with it 🙂

I lived in Germany for several years and the first thing that surprised me is that people announced themselves with their last name on the phone. Even if they want to book movie seats on the phone ;-). It makes it seem formal, but I guess it's just the way things are.

In France, on the phone we just say "hello" or sometimes the name of the company, or your name and the company name ( is it still the case?)

In the US,  the first name is definitely widely used. Also, I'm sure many of you have noticed that in newspapers and written/official articles/whitepapers etc the FirstName and LastName is mentioned the first time and then any additional reference to the person is done by using the LastName only. When there are many different names in the document I find it confusing...

I don't want to hijack the thread and start a discussion on in-person greeting, hand shaking, hugs, pats on the back, kisses, etc. But on a funny note, check out the "French map of kisses" that I added to the France Culture Cue Card in the wiki to see how people casually greet each other with a kiss in the different regions of France.

[ThomasZloch]

It's my thread, please feel free to hijack in any direction

Thomas

[marilyn_pratt]

I hadn't remembered the map. Did you just add?  It is very funny and so kind of you to put in that touch.

[marilyn_pratt]

Lucky you added the smiley wink or I might have had a cultural confusion here about the hijacking.

It's so easy to misread intentions in threaded discussions with multi-national participants.

[ThomasZloch]

It is indeed, but I thought "hijacking a thread" is a common term in online language, i.e. shifting the topic away from what the original poster intended? Of course, as a non-native English speaker I have used terms in the past that I thought were common, but rather led to confusion or amusement, depending on circumstances.

Thomas

[former_member181931]

I added the map a while ago, just recently I made it bigger so that everyone can see the differences by region.

FYI I come from Alsace -  next time we see each other again you know what to do 😉

[Former Member]

Mr.Thomas,

            Waiting for ur recommendation for nearby gym, y so lazy as a moderator sorry Mr.Moderator u want to be quick rit????......So funny u r.....grrrrrrrr......

[Former Member]

Thomas,

          U r a best comedy piece ever i seen....looking ur face uuvahhhhhh............sorry ....juz joke....seriously u r a best comedian ....

[Former Member]

Hee hee...

Nice one dinesh. Burst out laughing at that one.

[Former Member]

Hi Guys,

Just thought about something that I read somewhere.

I am not sure if its true, but maybe some one in the forums could be kind enough to clarify.

I heard that in some scandinavian country, the naming convention is as follows.

If a guy by the name of tomas has a son named thor, his name would be thor tomasson. I also heard that there is a similar suffix for daughters. (dottir??)

By the way......... no offense meant to anyone

Cheers,

Mazin

[Former Member]

Wikipedia is your friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronymics#Nordic_countries

In Iceland, however, patronymics are still used as last names and this is in fact compulsory by law, with a handful of exceptions

[Former Member]

Just out of curiosity,

>>If a guy by the name of tomas has a son named thor, his name would be thor tomasson.

What is/will be the name of Tomasson's son and his grand son?

Jai

[Former Member]

Tomassonsongranson ? ?*

*Conditions Apply --- No Offence Please....

[Former Member]

I think we all are just guilty of convenience which has nothing to do with naming convention.

We mostly use surnames/last names to a large extent in our daily colloquial use, Obama or Zidane or Beckham or Tendulkar for example. All of them are lastnames. Even the David (Beckham) inspired movie is called Bend It Like Beckham not Bend It Like David! Inherently, I think we use a 'unique identifier' to identify someone.

But I agree with most here that Indian names can be tricky as well as awfully long, you wouldn't want to know the fullname of the cricketer, VVS Laxman!

[former_member184657]

>

> you wouldn't want to know the fullname of the cricketer, VVS Laxman!

Piece of cake: Very Very Special Laxman

pk

[Former Member]

Thanks for this insight into Indian naming conventions!

This also explains why a lot of folks call themselves sk etc.

In Europe, some surnames (name2) have prefixes, such as "van" or "de" or "von" or "le" etc.

Some points gamers were recently not aware of this, when creating their dubawallas.

A nice "give-away" for an alert mod to take a closer look at "Isabel van" and Vicky de"...

Cheers,

Julius

[former_member184494]

Something on the same lines :

http://www.whatay.com/2004/05/17/the-travails-of-single-south-indian-men-of-conser/

[gaurav_kothari]

LoL.. That was awesome reading..

Regards,

Gaurav

[Former Member]

This was even more funny from the same site as above

[http://www.whatay.com/2004/05/20/weather-cynical-singaporeans-and-the-bible-or/]

Edited by: Dinesh Selvaraj on Dec 10, 2009 5:35 PM

[Former Member]

Hi,

Thanks for all our fellow members from India for all this interesting cultural information.

What I will remember if I ever go to India, is to ask people how they want to be named...

I'm very surprised by the possibility of the members of the same family to have different last names.

This is such an evidence in our western societes.

That is why it is so interesting to travel : you learn that your evidences are not evidences in an other culture.

Regards,

Olivier

[former_member184657]

While on Ethnic Names... dont forget to check out Russel Peters Xoblie! gig.

YouTube-able.

pk

[Former Member]

In India, we do have a lot of naming conventions, it all depends on the regions. Few that i can remember as of now:

<First Name> [Middle Name] <Family Name>
<Family Name> [Middle Name/ Long Names] <First Name> - Especially, the region i hail from the middle names can go close to 10. 
<First Name> <Father Name/ Husband Name> - This is the trickiest one.

In some parts calling a person with their surname is considered as honouring them whereas in few parts it is considered as insult.

Just my 2 cents and more confusion to add up...

~ Eswar

[former_member184657]

Thomas,

Firstly thank you for asking this question here. The reason being, for a long time I wanted to clarify a lot of things on this issue but dint bother because nobody bothered to really put it as a question per se. And finally here you are.

Indians have a lot of confusion when it comes to the "naming convention". Indian names do not follow a standard syntactic format.

As Vijay said theres usually a First Name, a Second Name a Sur Name and in some cases a host of Middle Names. This is mostly because of the the cultural diversity in India. Different cultures follow different syntaxes.. so to say.

Take my case: a simple First and Last Name. Unfortunately for me there is no Sur Name(Family Name). So you can imagine my dilema when i applied for my Passport. The passport has a provision for First Name, Given Names and Surname. I chose to put my entire name under Given Names to avoid confusion.. though it hardly did that when I landed in the US.

US system follows a strict First Name, Last Name format. I took a lot of convincing and furnishing a lot of additional documents before I could get my Social Security, License blah blah blah.

Now getting back to the question, this confusion in names becomes a nightmare for most Indians. Not many know that you either call a person by their first name or a Mr. Last Name. That is practically non-existant in the Indian naming system. Most Indians call their fellow Indians with their First Name. And hence you might find it a little funny.

Its a small cultural difference, but creates a lot of funny situations. I guess thats the best part when interacting in forums as diverse as this.

pk

[matt]

In (German speaking) Switzerland it is usual to answer the phone with your surname - but no honorific. It's also quite common to address one another directly by surname.

In England, the custom of calling people by surname (without Mr etc.) is only found in the more traditional fee paying schools.

[Former Member]

In formal situations, I address someone in the beginning with a Mr. Last name, but I myself introduce myself in communications like e-mails with my first name to indicate that its ok to address me by my first name.

If the other person responds with a "Hi Sameer" instead of a "Hello Mr. Jagirdar", I switch to using his first name too.

If the other person still responds by using my last name inspite of me using my first name in communications, I then also address the other guy by his last name.

But on SDN, I am just T00th.

[jurjen_heeck]

> In England, the custom of calling people by surname (without Mr etc.) is only found in the more traditional fee paying schools.

Fraternities and sororities sometimes do this as well, internally. They'll only allow this behaviour from members. Outside this kind of 'clubs' it is considered rude in the Netherlands to address someone by his/her last name without Mr. or Mrs.

As Thomas perfectly pointed out, I am interested. I already figured out it had to be some kind of cultural difference and/or misunderstanding so I wasn't offended when it happened to me in the forums.

Jurjen

[former_member184657]

>

> But on SDN, I am just T00th. 

Always meant to ask what's T00th ??

I always like to introduce myself as Kishan, but somehow it doesnt register in my head at the precise moment when the formalities are underway and end-up with Prashanth.

Once i cross the comfort zone Im pk to everyone.

Ive always been called that by my friends. And im usually famous for it, because in Hindi peekay means Drunk

So when somebody says pk aaya(literal mean - pk's come), it could also mean came drunk ?, in hindi. And it kinda registers in everyone's head.

pk

[Former Member]

Hi,

Thanks for this very interesting information which I have been interested in for a long time but did not dare to ask !

It's true that it's very cultural.

In a small country like France, it can even change depending from the area or the social class.

When I present myself, I will say

"My name is Olivier Chretien" but some other French people would say

"My name is Chretien Olivier". It can be difficult to understand because some last name can be the same as first name !

Nowadays, in the business world, it is most usual to use the first name even with a high ranking manager. But it depends also of the eventual age difference...

To know when to use the first name or last name is nearly an art and can be tricky.

Contrary to English, furthermore we have the choice between "tu" or "vous" (you or thou).

This choice is very subtile and it takes years for foreigners to master it.

Regards,

Olivier

[matt]

Small correction there: thee, thou, thine and thy etc. in English are the informal you - as "tu" i French or "du" in German.

This is reflected in the older church hymns, e.g. Nearer my God to Thee. Many people think that the "thee" form is more respectful. But the same hymns in French or German use the Tu/Du form. Thee/thou is in fact more intimate/informal; not to be used outside of family and close friends.

As the old Yorkshire saying goes "Don't thee thou me, thee thou thyself and see how thee likes it".

( Don't you (informal) say you (informal) to me. You (informal) try saying you (informal) to yourself (informal) and see how you (informal) like it! )

[ThomasZloch]

Glad to see so much interesting feedback.

Business in Germany is much like in France as Olivier described. In the beginnig people are very formal, addressing each other Frau or Herr <lastname> and using "Sie" ("you"). It takes that certain feeling for the right situation to suggest calling each other by <firstname> and "Du" (also, "you") after a while. Usually the older or higher ranked person is supposed to do the first step in this direction.

That leads to situations where you're sitting in an office together with four folks, with two of them in one and two in the other category...

But the trend in the past years is going towards reducing the formalities somewhat, at least that's my observation.

Greetings

Thomas

[suresh_datti]

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."

[Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) |http://www.enotes.com/romeo-text/3380#arose]

~Suresh

[former_member184657]

Clarification:

Though some Indian communities have strict naming conventions, some dont. Example: mine.

Im a Nair (Cast/Family Name). Every known family/entended family member's name ends with a Nair. So ideally my name should have been Prashant Nair. But my parents did not like the sound of it and decided to call me Prashanth Kishan instead, though theres nothing remotely kishan-ly (Kishan is another name for Lord Krishna) in the entire family. Also Prashanth is not really a First Name per se. Going by tradition I should have had a Raman in front of Prashanth Kishan (My dad's full name is Raman Gopalan Nair). Hence I should have been something like Raman Prashanth Nair. And since our cast is not very orthodox, my parents let it pass.

Again if you consider my dad's name, he may tell you his First name is Gopalan and not Raman, as it my look like. He would prefer to call Raman as a Sur Name. So? What is Nair? Middlename? Given Names?

The confusion begins....

pk Debo Nair

[jurjen_heeck]

> When I present myself, I will say

>

> "My name is Olivier Chretien" but some other French people would say

>

> "My name is Chretien Olivier".

Olivier,

Is the latter a more northern-French habit? I ask this because I noticed this Lastname-Firstname order on a lot of Belgian business signs as well. Sometimes I may not even notice which is which because neither has a typical "first name feel"like Paul or Peter...

Jurjen

[stephenjohannes]

This has been an interesting discussion so far I'll add in my observations for the US.

Most names here are usually

<First Name> <Middle Name> <Last Name>

except for the southern US states and you will see

<First Name> <Second First Name> <Middle Name> <Last Name>

or

<First Name> <Second First Name> <Last Name>

another variation found

<First Name> <Middle Initial> <Last Name> i.e Harry S Truman

You will find that when addresses complete strangers in authority people tend use the Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. <Last Name> format.

You will also see in military and sports situation where people are addressed by their last name. In addition if two people have the same first name, people will use the last name to distinguish between the two people. I do this commonly when talking to my one friend who has the same first name as myself.

You can address a co-worker or someone else by their first name depending on the type of environment or they have asked you to do so. An interesting construct in English is the use of Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. <Last Name> as an attention getter or construe a more formal tone that you would normally address in a more casual format. The attention getter sometimes is a setup for a joke.

As far as how the names are composed, in general it is usually the father last name given to the children. You will then see the first or middle name come from another relative who shares that name. However that rule is not set in stone.

Thanks for the nice Friday topic. I'm almost in vacation mode here.

Take care,

Stephen

[marilyn_pratt]

This thread made me giggle. I'm often addressed as Pratt from certain parts of the world. In England being a pratt isn't something I'd aspire to See [Pratt|http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/17/messages/824.html]

[matt]

I used to live in a town called Pratteln. The inhabitants are known as Prattelers. I'm sure you'd feel at home!

[ThomasZloch]

"The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang"

Just added this to my Amazon wishlist, will brush up my English a bit.

[Former Member]

For much of my school life I was called "Bushpig".

Boy was I glad when I finally left the town and could start over again...

[JPReyes]

Talking about towns with bad names.... I'm sure you read about ****, Austria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/****,_Austria

And you thought you had problems with paperwork

Regards

Juan

Yeah, thats the Name of the Town... no offense

 By the way... I dont know how that passed through the filter, 🙂 

[Former Member]

At least no one else can use the word, claiming that they only wanted to test the filters...

[JPReyes]

True!.... My contribution to the community....

[jurjen_heeck]

> Yeah, thats the Name of the Town... no offense

An uncle of mine has slightly different problems dictating his address in English:

"street"..

"number"..

"zipcode"..

"[Enter|http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=enter,+netherlands&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=51.443116,78.75&ie=UTF8&ll=52.295161,6.577438&spn=0.07832,0.153809&z=13]"

Which often triggers responses like "Duh, I know which keys to hit...."

[JPReyes]

hehehe.. good one

[Former Member]

Even I faced the same issue as PK while applying for the SSN in US. In my case I have a first name and sur name. In my passport I used the given name and combined my first name with sur name.

I am from TamilNadu (one of the state in South India) , normal naming convention here is 'initial (single character representing father's first name). name1 name2'. As I have the surname (inheriting from my grand parents) it used to be very difficult to convince people that I don't have initials but only a surname. I used to explain blah blah and finally have to mention that consider 's' as initial and they used to enter the name as 's.prem', I used to face this type of incident frequently in my state.

Heard that in Middle East, people used to have very big names like 'name1 name2 name3 name4' and we have to address the exact name else it is consider as an insult. I may be wrong too on this one, may be Raja can shed some light on this.

[Former Member]

>I'm often addressed as Pratt from certain parts of the world. In England being a pratt isn't something I'd >aspire to

I can understand : My last name Chretien means christian in english.

In all my school years, I have been called budhist or muslim or cretin (which means idiot in french).

Children are often not very nice with each others...

Olivier

[Former Member]

Matthew,

>Small correction there: thee, thou, thine and thy etc. in English are the informal you - as "tu" i French >or "du" in German.

Thanks for the correction, I did not remember it !

>"Don't thee thou me, thee thou thyself and see how thee likes it".

That is excellent ! but I would never try myself to pronounce this sentence !

Olivier

[Former Member]

>Is the latter a more northern-French habit?

I think you are right.

Martin is the most common French last name but it is also a first name.

Paul is also a possible first and last name.

So my name is Martin Paul or Paul Martin is very ambigious !

Olivier

[Former Member]

Prashanth,

You nearly gave me a headache !

Is'nt it mandatory in India for children to have the same last name as their father ?

Olivier

[Former Member]

>>Is'nt it mandatory in India for children to have the same last name as their father ?

Not really

My last name is not same as my fathers last name.I would say that in some parts of India it might be a custom to have the last name as your Father's but its not mandatory.

Thanx

Aamir

Edited by: Aamir Suhail on Sep 19, 2008 11:58 AM

[Former Member]

AFAIK in India it is not mandatory to have the same last name as father's.

Sometime in US airports some of my friends (Indian families) faced questions like 'how come you are a family but each one has got different last names'

[former_member184657]

Is'nt it mandatory in India for children to have the same last name as their father ? 

Well, as I said in some customs its not really the case. I guess this is another example:

Sometime in US airports some of my friends (Indian families) faced questions like 'how come you are a family but each one has got different last names' 

My nephew's name is Priya(Mother's Name) Vijay(Father's Name) Shashank(..finally, Child's Name).

Another interesting naming convention is with the Indian Catholic Christians. Most Indian Christians' names are a combination of two First Names. Something like, Richard Thomas or George Matthew. The latest trend is to have a English First Name an Indian Last Name or vice-versa. Ex: John Kamaraj.

Recipe for more headache?

pk

[Former Member]

Until now.......

But seriously, I have a friend who has been called Shed all his working life - short for Sh** Head. Every time he goes to a new site he gives his Christian name, but he always runs into someone who calls him shed and it all starts again.

Thats the trouble with nicknames. I always tell people its "Star" or "Fearless" but I always end up with "The Man with no Brain".

Sadly, it does make sense.

Gareth

[Former Member]

Here' one from me....

Why did the Mallu cross the road?

SIMBLY!

[former_member184657]

>

> SIMBLY!

This could SIMBLY be somebody's First Name

Mallu's (Malayalam speakers) - my brethren - are very notorius for their naming conventions.

pk

[David]

Gareth Ellem wrote

Until now.......

But seriously, I have a friend who has been called Shed all his working life - short for Sh** Head.

How could my friend Julius have missed this opportunity to refer to the famous Monty Python "Thomas Two-Sheds Jackson" sketch?

DB

[Former Member]

In many Spanish speaker countries we use this convention:

Fist Name - Middle Name - Last Name - Your mother's maiden name

In my case:

Erika         - Yanina      - Atencio         - Harris

As you can see my last name is Atencio, but using all those names can cause confusion in  non Spanish speakers countries so people from there could think my last name is Harris, and could refer to me as Ms. Harris.  But the truth is that my last name is really the third one. So if you have to address to  me using the polite words, you have to say Ms. Atencio.

However in Spanish you can use in your daily life only your First Name and Last Name, just like in my case:

Erika Atencio

Or if you really love all those other names you can use the initials just  to abbreviate a little bit, something like

Erika Y. Atencio H.

or

Erika Y. Atencio

[Lukas_Weigelt]

or PadawanGirl?

[marilyn_pratt]

A long while ago I created a wiki space for Culture Cue Cards or Culturegrams: http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/Community/Community+Culture+Cue+Card

The idea was to consolidate intelligence and cultural sensitivity cues so that we better understand each others' practices and customs in a buisness/technical community environment.

Seems we could add some forms of address to these if anyone takes up the challenge.

I've just added my old blog to this space for reference: http://scn.sap.com/community/coffee-corner/blog/2009/04/27/community-culture-cue-card

There are cards for:

Australia Culture Cue Card

China Culture Cue Card

France Culture Cue Card

Germany Culture Cue Card

India Culture Cue Card

Israel Culture Cue Card

Would be great to add some for Central, South, Latin America and expand the "placeholders" that appear above.

[Former Member]

Hi I found some interesting notes about customes and practices in my country through the eyes of some foreigners:

Here an interesting link:

http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Norway-to-Russia/Panamanians.html

It says the following that is true:

"Like other Hispanic Americans, Panamanians greet friends and relatives more demonstratively than is the custom in the United States. Common among men is the abrazo (embrace), particularly if they have not seen each other for some time. Acquaintances will shake hands both on meeting and departing. Women often embrace and kiss on one or both cheeks. People are likely to stand closer to one another in conversation than is common in North America."

Here a not so serious link you'll enjoy (warning: some things are true about my country, others are not):

http://thingspanamanianslike.com/2012/07/14/reader-contribution-from-james/

[marilyn_pratt]

Hi Erika,

A few years ago my youngest child was a high school exchange student in Panama and I had the privledge of visiting with her and her host family during the Carnival season.  Would you care to create a culture cue card for Panama?  If one was doing "SAP" business there, do you have any specific tips?  I was there for fun and not for work but I wonder if you were a consultant deployed to Panama from another country, would there be anything especially important to keep in mind so as to avoid embarrassing situations?

Funny that this post is "revived".

Marilyn

[Former Member]

Done! http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/Community/Latin+America+Culture+Cue+Card

[marilyn_pratt]

Thanks Erika!

Appreciate that. 

Although I spent some brief time in Panama (it was visiting my daughter who was studying there), I was not well versed in the concept of titles and addressing people.

Excellent to know that now ....wish I had read that before!

Is the wiki the best place for these tips.  Should we try to make these more accessible and visible.

Marilyn

[JPReyes]

Hi Zloch,

Seen these lots of times... I was wondering that myself.

Must be seen as polite to use the last name (depending on the last name)

Regards

Reyes

[former_member188685]

> Hi Zloch,

we generally call Thomas instead of Zloch.

But you are calling otherway...

[former_member181995]

Hello Reyes,

believe me it's not sounds polite in india.

Sorry Juan

Cheers

[former_member188685]

example: Prabhu Peram

Prabhu is his name (First name)

Peram is His sir name (last name) .

In general we call Prabhu ( with first name)

[former_member181995]

What About You Brother?

I believe Vijay is your Name and Dudla is your Family name but whats secret about middle name?

Cheers

[former_member188685]

I forgot that...?

Some people may have the middle name , But not all the cases we have middle name. isn't it?

[former_member181995]

Right