Talk:Personal name/Archive 1

Native north americans and other natives overshadowed by colonizers

I wanted to know the naming conventions of Ojibwa people or at least an approximated generalization... But I've found nothing... No one boards that subject... And it's missing! 200.106.40.22 03:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Something

Does anyone have any more information about naming in other, less west European, cultures that they could add? We need some information on naming conventions in Arabic and probably China and Japan as well, as a minimum.

There is already some fairly good material at Arabic name, Chinese name, Japanese name, etc. that can be condensed into something presentable for this article (although the Chinese name article probably needs to make it a little clearer about some of the differences between the naming traditions Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and perhaps some mild POV editing). Where we really need some better info is on African nameing traditions, and Jewish names, as well as for First Nation and Native American naming traditions, etc. There are also areas of the world where single names are common (Afganistan, Indonesia, etc.) which needs to be covered. There was also an interesting article in the LA Times this last month about names and genealogy in Mongolia that had info that would be interesting to include. The more I think about it there are areas that I know nothing about the naming traditions: Australian Aborigines and Maori, South American natives plus the Aztecs and Mayans, Pacific Islanders and Hawaiians, and the list goes on. And then the discussion on Patronymic needs lots of work, both here and in the main article. [[User:GK|gK ¿?]] 15:52, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Compulsory Family Names in Europe?

re: "Family name: Compulsory in the West, at least for past 300 years or so." This is incorrect. In looking information up at the LDS genealogical website in their country Research Outlines I found the following info: [1]

For Denmark: From around 1850 on, city-dwelling Danes started taking permanent surnames, but it wasn't until 1875 that rural Danes followed suit. It wasn't until 1904 that a national law required people to adopt permanent family names.

For Sweden: In 1901 a law required people to adopt permanent surnames to be passed onto successive generations.

For Norway: After about 1850, it became the custom in the cities to take permanent surnames. By 1900 most of Norway began doing so. In some places, the patronymic naming customs continued until 1923, when a law was passed requiring persons to adopt permanent family names to be passed to successive generations.

For Germany: most people had adopted surnames by the 1500's, but patronymics continued in some areas until various different states adopted decrees requiring permanent surnames between 1771 and 1820.

For Wales: Most nobles adoped surnames by the 16th century, and gentry during the 18th, but farmers and workers did not take surnames until the 19th century or later.

For France: Surnames were first used by the nobility and wealthy land owners. Later the custom was followed by merchants and townspeople and eventually by the rural population. This process took two or three centuries. In France, the practice was well established by the 1200s. Since 1539 the law that required priests to write baptism registers also required them to write the surname next to the baptismal name. Jewish Naming Customs. Before 1808, the use of a family name by Jews was left to the discretion of the individual. Most Jews in France followed the custom of using only a given name and the father's name, such as Isaac, son of Abraham. Occasionally the name of the town where the person lived was used, as in Isaac of Metz. Most Jews did not adopt hereditary family names until required to do so by law. In 1808 Napoleon made Jews take a fixed surname.

[some of the above info will need to be rewritten to use in the Wikipedia because it is copyrighted material.] [[User:GK|gK ¿?]] 09:50, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Name order

The text in the "Name order" section was confusing. It is now much shorter and hopefully less confusing. However, some information is still lacking:

• It ought to say that the capital-letters convention is used by writers from both ordering conventions, but I was not able to say that in a clear fashion. (It can be used to disambiguate a name for a global audience, no matter what its native order is.)

• Some discussion of the relative prevalence of this convention would be nice; also of how common it is to swap name order for an audience from the other convention.

• Is there an equivalent convention when transliterating from Latin alphabet to e.g. katakana (which does not have two cases)?

Zack

I've only ever seen the all-capitals for last name convention in scientific literature, but I assume that the convention is used in some non-English languages since I know that there are couple of the non-English Wikipedias that use it (the Esperanto Wiki I think is one of them). [[User:GK|gK ¿?]] 06:30, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can anyone tell me why some cultures place their family name before their given name and vice versa. and maybe somebody can give a link for this too.--Janarius 16:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Birthplace names

Is there an official word for 'birthplace names'? These are especially common in Arab cultures, e.g. Saddam Hussein's "full" name is Saddām Hussein `Abd al-Majid al-Tikrītī — the al-Tikrītī bit refers to his place of birth, the district of Tikrit. I would suggest "geonym" or "polinym", but those are wild guesses. Any help? -- FirstPrinciples 00:58, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

There is already an article on Arabic name, which specifically mentions Saddam Hussein's full name, but suggests that suggest that the use of place names is a minor tradition within the Arabic naming tradition. If you know more about Arabic name, you might add that information to the Arabic name article. There are also quite a few European last names that are based upon place names. BlankVerse 08:38, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No kidding :) My question was, do the "birthplace names" themselves have a specific name (e.g. I speculate "polinym" from the Greek, poli [town] + nym [name]). The reference to Arabic names and Saddam Hussein was just there to elaborate the question. -- FirstPrinciples 12:16, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

You're thinking of bynames, but there's no article on that yet. The 'by' is from the word for 'town' in the scandinavian languages — KayEss | talk 08:23, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it's not. A byname is a nickname, or surname, and the 'by' part of the word has the sense of 'beside' or 'secondary'. It is also found in such words as by-blow, by-catch, ... bypath, by-road, by-play, byway, etc, etc. Eilthireach 18:58, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Duplication

There's a certain amount of unnecessary duplication of information between this article and Given name and Family name, e.g. about name order and name origins. Anyone feel like cleaning it up? Ben Finn 10:09, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Cultures without individual names?

I seem to recall from Antrhopology courses that there do exist (or have existed) cultures in which individuals do not have names. Perhaps they have a name that is shared among a small group of individuals (such as close kin) within a larger group, or similar idea. Am I mistaken? Thanks! --NightMonkey 02:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. It seems highly questionable that personal given names are "universal", as this article claims. For example, the article on Roman naming conventions indicates that through most of recorded Roman history, Roman women had no given names at all: a single daughter of the Octavius family would simply be called Octavia, while if there were two daughters they would be Octavia Minor and Octavia Maior. Furthermore, male Romans had praenomina which are sort of like given names... except that they were chosen from an extremely restricted set of only 20-40 possibilities. Moxfyre 21:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

In the reference to Anonyms what is the purpose of bolding Anonym?, the section seems to differentiate between a person who avoids giving a name and one who uses a pseudonym, however anonym just redirects to pseudonym. Should there be a seperate article regarding anonyms? Would persons who have no name, either by choice or circumstance, be included in the group anonyms? --Withamk@usa.net 07:10, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Taking additional middle names

I have heard that Anglican Priests have traditionally taken an extra middle name at the time of their ordination. Can anyone confirm that? --Gw russell 21:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Nonhuman names - relevant?

What is the point of including a section about names of nonhumans in an article titled "Personal name"? Particularly the detailed paragraphs about the two horses in Romans of the Three Kingdoms... Totally irrelevant. --supernorton 01:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Child-rights convention

The ref to Convention on the Rights of the Child is little more than PR for that institution, in light of that article's, uh, extensive coverage of enforcement. (The term the author is looking for is "in force", not "enforced", BTW; two barely related concepts.) I found

According to Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, enforced as of 1990, every child has a right to a name.

and i'm leaving

The Convention on the Rights of the Child endorses personal names as a human right.

which is the NPoV version of as much as the article or talk on the convention says is in it. More could perhaps be encyclopedically said about the convention and personal names, but in that article, not this one.
--Jerzy•t 22:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Feudal Names

Just wondering if there was any justification for 1) the use of small caps for "Lafayette" and "Quixote" and 2) the comment that the title of the musical comedy is "the disgusting phrase".

Not having seen the comedy, I can't really comment on the quality of it, but I don't know if that comment is particularly relevant. And the oddness of formatting with small caps just seemed a bit confusing. If no one has any strong objections, I'll clean those up in a week or so. Datsun Eleven 23:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

You misread it; it says "disguising", not "disgusting". As for the small caps, that's just an illustration of the convention which it's talking about. I don't see anything wrong with that. Hairy Dude 00:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Cultural Conventions Section

I suggest that the section discussing the different naming traditions and conventions in various cultures should have its own section. It is not really pertitent to the structure of a name where it is listed now. Ngaskill 22:46, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Teller's name

There is a claim that Teller's name was legally changed to a single name, including on his passport. The Wikipedia article on Teller makes this claim, as do other articles. The only support for this claim is a reference to a comedy website. Is there any acual evidence of the single name on the passport? Are we to take a joke website advertising a comedy team as an encyclopedic source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.68.134.1 (talk) 20:57, 19 August 2008 (UTC)