Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles

Spaces in names (recap)

Several months ago, we had a discussion on the inclusion of spaces in names, which resulted in a concensus to split the kanji in the introduction (小泉<SPACE>純一郎) etc. The MoS currently has that in the WP:MOS-JA#Names of modern figures section; but not the WP:MOS-JA#Names of historical figures section. I can't see any reason or discussion on separating the usage of the SPACE between two cases, so I think it should be added to the historical figures section. I would change it myself, except, I just reverted an edit to Tokugawa Ieyasu which had removed the space. Even though he is the example listing in the historical names section (with the space), adding the sentence to the MoS directly after reverting an edit like that might be considered bad form. Neier 20:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Done for consistency's sake. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 21:57, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

A Qestion to Rocky7-san

Are you talking about a transliteration system? If so, it must be a transliteration of Kana script which is devoid of long vowels. If not, it must be a transcription of the Japanese language and you must reinvent the whole wheel of the syllabary or phonology. But then I wonder how you can talk about anything but the language of a specific time and region or a dialect. Please read Talk:Romanization of Japanese#An Extended-Hepburn System Kmns tsw 23:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

jAPAn's CrAZy caPItaliZaTIONS

Wikipedia already has policies on capitalization; however, it seems that Japan-related articles are especially subject to violations, due in part to the way that the roman alphabet is (mis)treated by sources in Japan. I don't think we need to break any ground by setting any new policies, but, I think it is not a bad idea to add a section to our MoS that enforces the point that Japan-related articles are not exceptions to WP:MOS-TM and WP:MOSCAPS (especially #2 in WP:MOSCAPS#All caps. Discussion or opposition? Neier 00:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Anime, CVG, and J-Pop related articles are frequent violators of this. Let's enshrine the standard in the rules. --Kunzite

I agree as well. Something like, "Use capitalization per WP:MOSCAPS and WP:MOS-TM." ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

In English, these are violations under Wikipedia style guidelines and proper English usage. Such butchering of the English language, however, are considered legitimate in Japan (Japanese). Hence, this situation can cause a conflict here in the English Wikipedia.

I am in support of the proposals by Neier and Nihonjoe, clarifying that Wikipedia style guidelines overrule the Japanese norms regarding this matter. Any "Japan-related trademarks, names, and entities" should adhere to the normal standards for capitalization, set here in the English Wikipedia.--Endroit 16:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Changes were made. I think it is a little more forceful than what was there already. Neier 06:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Lets' not' forget the craz'y apostrophe's to! (FLET'S) Brettr 13:06, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Me too. During the last three minutes I've revisited the article Harajuku, marveled again at WP's editors' huge preference for the description of "references" (no matter how daft or trivial) in "popular culture" to X rather than a description of X, seen that at least one of these "references" wasn't American but was instead by the Japanese popsters "Puffy", taken a quick look at their article (in which they're called by their longwinded US-market name despite being bigger in Japan), and taken the link therefrom to "Hi Hi PUFFY Bu", whose dutiful write-up of Puffy-cruft, sorry, PUFFY-cruft, has a certain comedic value that I presume was unintended. (Has corporate Japan really succeeded in some evil plan of defeating the Occident by mass infantilization?) -- Hoary 23:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I thought their plans were much more sinister (see Chinpokomon) Neier 02:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Meanwhile, which conspiracy hatched 快楽亭ブラック? (I don't know if he's having any effect on the "imperial" family, but the background on his site [a PNG misrepresented as a GIF] certainly messes with my brain.) -- Hoary 05:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Italics

In a vein similar to the suggestion about capitalization above, I would like to propose a clarification regarding the use of italics for foreign-language terms. Even this MOS itself isn't consistent in its use of italics, although they appear to be mandated for anything not introduced into English (per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Foreign terms). Consistent italicization would also be a useful visual cue for clarifying which terms should use macrons and which shouldn't (tankōbon or sumo, but never tankōbon or sumo). Dekimasuよ! 07:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the example at the end of your comments. Could you elaborate? ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I was trying to use macrons as an example of text understood as Japanese vs. text understood as English. Thus, we would write "shōchū" when considering the word a Japanese term, and "shochu" when considering it English. We would never write "shōchū" in plain text, because that would be considering the macronned version common English; likewise shochu without macrons would be understood as improper transliteration. It's the same as the italicization scheme of the nihongo template.

I didn't mean to stir up macron discussions again. The trigger for the original post was a discussion of whether all the instances of shinigami should be italicized at Shinigami. They were on that page, but weren't on several of the manga-related pages that use the term. It seems like there should be some consistency among them, and that seems to fall under the scope of this MOS. Dekimasuよ! 06:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. I will use your example "shōchū / shochu". Regardless of the use of italics and regardless of whether you consider the word to be English or Japanese via a transliteration, I expect to see the word spelled as "shōchū". As you said, "I didn't mean to stir up macron discussions again", so I will take your word and leave it at that unless further comments head into that direction. I suggest discussion concentrate on the italics issue without bringing the macron debate into it. As long as words are spelled correctly, I do not really have a strong opinion either way about italics. Bendono 07:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you strongly disagree with. I'll reiterate for added clarity. If you would like to go through the article and change all instances to "shōchū", be my guest. I would be perfectly happy. They almost all say "shochu" now, and I don't think I have ever touched that article. Just italicize them, please; it's not English. Dekimasuよ! 10:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, this is a problem. Though, I would agree with Dekimasu. Currently, WP:MOS says briefly "Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have common use in the English language." and "Loan words or phrases that have common use in English, however...do not require italicization." So, yeah, I think that roughly the same guidelines could be applied to italics as to macrons (though proper names are never italicized, right?). Shinigami is definitely a Japanese word, not one that has been taken into English, and as far as I'm concerned should always be italicized, so that's a simple one. I'm sort of on the fence personally about when words which pertain solely to a specifically Japanese context (e.g. kabuki, daimyō, ukiyo-e, kendō) should be counted as "common English words" - daimyō and ukiyo-e are far less likely to be included in the average person's vocabulary than karate, samurai, ninja, geisha, and sushi as used by people who only know the words from movies or video games and don't really know the culture and history behind them... but that can be an argument for another time. For the sake of simplicity, I think Dekimasu's idea is fine - For non-proper nouns, the same guidelines for determining foreign word identity can be applied to both macrons and italics. LordAmeth 10:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for putting my point more clearly. We set "common use" as the criterion for not using macrons, so it should roughly coincide with italicization under the current policy, regardless of the validity of that policy, which we shouldn't discuss here, per Bendono. Dekimasuよ! 10:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

How about resolving this by the addition of a numbered point in the section on body text romanization, simply to the effect that "transliterated terms should be italicized in accordance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Foreign terms"? Dekimasuよ! 10:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Utada

I'm interested in everyone's opinions on Utada Hikaru versus Hikaru Utada. The current page goes against the MoS: For a modern figure (a person born from the first year of Meiji (1868) onward), always use the Western order of given name + family name . There is an old discussion at Talk:Utada Hikaru#Requested move, but, it looks like none of the WP:MOS-JA regulars were aware of it (or, at least, did not vote). Is the stage name "Utada Hikaru" popular enough to earn an exception to our rules? Or, does it even matter how popular the name is? Neier 12:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I note that ja:WP thinks its readers can put up with [scratches his head, trying to think of the name of some occidental popster] ブリトニー・スピアーズ and doesn't convert the shaven-headed one to スピアーズ・ブリトニー. I'm delighted to hear that Utada Hikaru has broken this asinine rule of en:WP, and look forward to using it as a precedent myself. (Indeed, I wish I had a bot with which I could change thousands of reversed Japanese names to their original order. Not that I intend to break any rules, of course. Perish the thought!) -- Hoary 12:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this isn't a great example for your cause, since she was born in America and has American citizenship. I would never refer to her as "Hikaru Utada", but I don't see the necessity of an exception here. Under what name is her music released in the USA? I seem to remember that Exodus was published domestically... the others might only be available as imports. If Exodus was released under "Hikaru Utada", that should seal the deal. Dekimasuよ! 13:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that for entertainers and artists/authors, the self-chosen nom de guerre supersedes WP:MOS-JA, so Utada shouldn't have any effect on MOS-JA. Say what you will of the inequities of the reversed name order, at least Japanese names are consistent. If you're Chinese, your family names comes first if you play basketball, but not if you play baseball. Ytny (talk) 13:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that for entertainers and artists/authors, the self-chosen nom de guerre supersedes WP:MOS-JA: This is wonderful news; except that it can't be as simple as all that otherwise the fanbase will cry that the nom de guerre of Ellegarden is (and you'd better put your hands over your ears) "ELLEGARDEN" etc etc. -- Hoary 13:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but that's why we have WP:NAME to deal with the naughty capitalizers. Ytny (talk) 13:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

This can go around in circles all day, but I'm pretty sure it's not true that we defer to other MOS pages; WP:NAME#Japanese defers to this page, and anyway, WP:NAME#People tells us that "Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) starts from the idea that names in the format <First name> <Last name> are usually the least problematic as page name for an article on a single person." I can't find anything on any of the pages that says we should defer to a self-chosen name (except in the case of a company), although we have had discussions on this page about kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, et cetera. The most basic rule in most situations is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), and since she releases music in the Western world and sometimes lives there, it is useful to ask what name she releases it under there. The answer, unfortunately, appears to be just "Utada". Dekimasuよ! 13:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I should've been clearer about which WP supersedes which. MOS-JA naming convention is generally for Japanese people who go buy their legal name and haven't changed or modified it for artistic reasons. It's a bit muddled since "Utada Hikaru" is both her legal (at least before marriage) and stage name, but it seems we've generally gone by the romanized name in published works, even if it's meant for Japanese audiences (Tomomi Kahala comes to mind).

I'm not sure if her US career is notable enough for her US stage name to have much relevance. I'm just guessing here, but her US followers know her as a J-Pop singer, not as a failed (not even close to) Top 40 artist.

Apropos of little, the Japanese Wikipedia lists a naturalized former footballer as ディド・ハーフナー, but his son, also a naturalized citizen, as ハーフナー・マイク. And Iron Chef Chinese shows up as Chen Kenichi, while a certain Taiwanese passport-holding baseball player is known as Sadaharu Oh. 15:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

But we are, in fact, having this discussion because she has a larger following of Western followers than the average J-pop singer, leading to a more widespread recognition of the Japanese naming order. We don't seem to have this problem with Kumi Koda, Ayumi Hamasaki, or other such articles that would never appear with the Western naming order under any circumstances. Dekimasuよ! 15:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

"Kumi Koda"; ah, so she's lost a mora as well. I first encountered Kōda Kumi on a TV within some suburban supermarket; I thought it was a soft porn loop and was waiting for her to unhook her bra. Not much music, lots of cleavage and eyelash-fluttering, change of clothes every ten seconds. The interminable and adulatory article about her is riddled with goofy capitalization, starting in the very first sentence. -- Hoary 00:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if we just go by the cover of the Exodus CD, that doesn't decide anything. In fact, it actually goes more toward using Hikaru Utada rather than Utada Hikaru since it uses simply "Utada" as her artist name on the cover. So, it may be time to revisit the location of her article here. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

All of the things I found indicate she goes by just "Utada" in the USA... despite which, her birth certificate says "Hikaru Utada". I don't see the need for an exception. Dekimasuよ! 03:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I must disagree with you there. If her music is published in the States under the name "Utada" (a one-word name, like Sting, Madonna, or Moby), how does that tilt it towards Hikaru Utada being the more appropriate version? Personally, I see no problem with making an exception in this case as it is an official stage-name.LordAmeth 01:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, I think there is suitable confusion as to her name, based on the edit I just had to make to repair a category sorting. Neier 05:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

No chance of revisiting the stupid MoS rule whereby Japanese people who happen to have been born after 1867 have their names inverted by default? -- Hoary 00:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

People who don't know the naming order used in Japan will either walk around saying "Hikaru Utada" and "Noboru Takeshita" or they will walk around saying "Ms. Hikaru" and "Mr. Noboru". It's six of one, a half dozen of the other. Dekimasuよ! 04:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what they'll do. When I started ranting above, I was under the influence of a malaise that only turned out later to be a cold (still with me); certainly I hadn't realized that Utada was (to some extent) American. I've just now had a quick look at her article. (I couldn't be bothered to read it; for the most part I contemplated the numerous depictions [Fair Use!] of her everchanging hairstyles.) I did notice that there was a section on her name. Its very start is bizarre: "Her legal name at birth was Hikaru Utada (宇多田光, Utada Hikaru)." Now, I very hazily (mis)remember that there's nothing about yomikata in name registration; if this is correct, then it would be a lot more accurate (if less helpful) to say that her legal name at birth was 宇多田光, period. But I could well be wrong; for now, I'll assume that I am wrong there and that her name was registered as both 宇多田光 and うただひかる. What I'm absolutely sure of is that her legal name in Japan was never ひかるうただ, a fact that is of course obvious to all of us geezers nattering away on this page but that won't be obvious to those people populating Dekimasuyo's nightmare as they walk around mumbling "Mister Noboru". Assuming that she should be "Hikaru Utada" (which incidentally I dispute), this should be something like: "Her legal name at birth was 宇多田光: Utada Hikaru, or in the western order Hikaru Utada" -- one can later argue over the exact wording of this, and whether it's worth pointing out here that 光 isn't the same as ヒカル, etc etc.

Putting Japanese names back to front seems pretty daft, but going behond this to say (or strongly imply, for those who don't take the link to a separate explanation of Japanese names) that this inverted order is the legally registered form in Japan: this is utterly bonkers. -- Hoary 08:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not the MOS that's stupid. It's the stupid academics and the media who use last-first for pre-Meiji figures and vice versa for post-Meiji. As an encyclopedia that is at the mercy of secondary sources, Wikipedia (and the MOS) will always be the symptom, not the disease. Ytny (talk) 00:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with any academic work that does this bizarre switch for 1868 and I can think of few academic works that invert the Japanese order. Meanwhile, well-edited non-academic books increasingly keep the Japanese order. The stupidity is in the collective wisdom of the Bouvards and Pécuchets of this compendium of fancruft, trivia, and (sometimes) notable information, and their worries about "the media" and the prejudices of its consumers. (Elsewhere, yes, WP is the symptom: e.g. of the mess caused by two approaches to romanization, each inadequate.) -- Hoary 01:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I honestly did not intend for this to turn into a debate over our arbitrary 1868 dividing point; but, only whether there was any reason to hold an exception to our arbitrary 1868 dividing point. I was leaning towards "no exception" in this case, and it seems that most of the comments agree with that.

As for the 1868 cut-off date; it makes it easy for editors, but, confusing for everyone else. While generally we should avoid making rules specifically for the ease of editors (Wikipedia being primarily for the readers), I think we need to have a naming order rule in order to prevent chaos and constant page moves. Having the order spelled out in the MoS at least keeps things stable. The only alternative to the 1868 rule that I can see garnering any support is forcing all Japanese articles to be ordered "FamilyName GivenName". Then, we have a gray area about "what is a Japanese article"? Is Kazuo Ishiguro Japanese? How about Ayako Fujitani? Even in clear cases of Japanese-ness, we would see outrage from Wikipedia editors in general when we renamed Suzuki Ichiro and Matsui Hideki.

By obliging ourselves to the idea that names in the format <First name> <Last name> are usually the least problematic we can avoid those troubles, and simply move the controversy to historical figures. Nobody wants to see a page titled Ieyasu Tokugawa, so to avoid that, we have to find a way to discriminately determine how we order a person's name. The Meji divide is a pretty good compromise in that resort. Neier 01:13, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The only alternative to the 1868 rule that I can see garnering any support is forcing all Japanese articles to be ordered "FamilyName GivenName". If you mean personal names (regardless of whether they're article titles), that sounds good to me. ("Forcing" is a bit odd, though. Why "force" a name to remain in its correct order? Now they're forced into the wrong order.)

Then, we have a gray area about "what is a Japanese article"? Is Kazuo Ishiguro Japanese? How about Ayako Fujitani? The former is a novelist who's spent most of his life in Europe and who writes in English; he seems pretty obviously European to me. I'd never heard of the latter, but the article about her (which suggests that I've missed little) makes it pretty clear that she's Japanese.

Even in clear cases of Japanese-ness, we would see outrage from Wikipedia editors in general when we renamed Suzuki Ichiro and Matsui Hideki. The former would be Suzuki Ichirō, no? They're Japanese baseball players who work in the US, where, I suppose, their names are systematically inverted. I know little about baseball but wouldn't be surprised to hear that they are both "bigger" in Japan than in the US, even while they're working in the US. Certainly their names are prominent in sports tabloids and their faces are prominent in advertising in Japan. But I don't care about them either way. Surely a couple of baseball players needn't be an impediment to putting thousands of Japanese names in the right order, as opposed to what westerners who know little about Japan fondly presume is the right order. -- Hoary 03:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

"Surely a couple of baseball players needn't be an impediment to putting thousands of Japanese names in the right order, as opposed to what westerners who know little about Japan fondly presume is the right order. " - Hoary, tell that to the Japanese government: - http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/index-e.html = Shinzo Abe! Also, remember this is an Anglophone wiki, so we only care about people who speak English. WhisperToMe 03:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

1. tell that to the Japanese government: I have no interest in attempting to tell anything to the people who constitute the Japanese government.

2. Also, remember this is an Anglophone wiki, so we only care about people who speak English. Actually only those who read English. I care about delivering to these people information that is correct, not mangled to conform to their prejudices, the style guides of English-language newspapers, etc. -- Hoary 04:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is it an issue if the names are "mangled" if the Japanese clearly embrace "Western order in English?" I can find more examples for you. Read Mainichi Shimbun's English language edition: http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/ . Read Sanrio Japan's history: http://www.sanrio.co.jp/english/about_s/history.html . Look at Kodanclub (Kodansha) descriptions of manga series here: http://www.kodanclub.com/cgi-local/comic.cgi?id=009-00025-01-005 - "Western order in English" is clearly commonplace in Japan, so the Western order usage for modern figures cannot be considered to be mangled. Also, this http://www.kodanclub.com/cgi-local/comic.cgi?id=004-00110-01-001 illustrates the concept that FNGN is to be used for the Japanese language while GNFN is used for the English language. WhisperToMe 05:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is it an issue if the names are "mangled" if the Japanese clearly embrace "Western order in English?" If they did, it wouldn't be. But they don't do so en masse. (Some do, some don't.) I don't have to look at the online English-language Mainichi: I already know that the Japan Times and the Asahi part of the Japanese-market IHT reverse the name order. I'm particularly uninterested in what's done by the publishers of juvenile literature. I am interested in what's done by, say, Yale University Press. -- Hoary 07:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

A lot of you are editing Japanese pages and don't the history of Japanese name order? The decision was taken by Monbusho to use given-name family-name order in English to avoid confusion for foreigners in the Meiji Era. Recently the policy has been relaxed to allow people to choose the order used but bucking the established order is unusual. Utada is on record as saying the name order Utada Hikaru was not intended for English use but was simply using romaji on her Japanese CD (I've heard her say this and this is mentioned in the wiki article). Also if you look at sites like Amazon you'll see her name written Hikaru Utada. Brettr 05:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Really, Monbushō and its successor can prescribe whatever they like: nothing they say can alter the fact that (for example) Domon Ken was called Domon Ken and not "Ken Domon". -- Hoary 07:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

You mean this guy, right? The reality is that common modern usage of Japanese names is tending towards GNFN. We can deny that here, but, it won't stop anything; and, that's why I don't think that a mandatory FNGN ordering for Japanese articles would fly. As for determining whether someone is Japanese or not, by the transitive property of the judgement you applied to Ishiguro above, are Daniel Kahl and Kaiya Japanese? Here's a bonus round: Crystal Kay, who lived her whole life here. In ja:wiki, she even gets to keep her Roman name; but, under the Ishiguro rule you would probably want her as Williams Crystal Kay ? It's those types of decisions (including Ishiguro) which we don't need to be making here.Neier 09:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

There certainly is a Domon Ken Kinenkan for the Domon Ken I have in mind, so I suppose it's the same fellow, yes. (But since looking at the site requires plugging in some plug in, I can't see it.) He's the kind of person who richly deserves an article in en:WP but clearly is of nowhere near as much interest to the mass of en:WP editors as are these gaijin tarento, etc (all of whom are unknown to me) that you dig up.

You really should get the plugin, so you can see the "Ken Domon Museum of Photography" on the homepage of 土門拳記念館. Neier 13:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Look, I neither know nor care if any gaijin tarento is Japanese or Korean or New Guinean or whatever. To the extent that they are Japanese, all together they constitute a minuscule percentage of born-after-1867, noteworthy Japanese people. Maybe you can tweak the rules so that anybody who consistently uses a certain arrangement of name-elements has an article under that arrangement -- as of course is already done for Elton John* and so forth.

* Oh, I've just read that his real name isn't John Elton, as I'd presumed. Well, there are probably other cases of order-switching.

Meanwhile, I very slowly slowly continue to add material to the bibliography of Kimu-- sorry, of "Ihei Kimura", dutifully translating the book title Kimura Ihei no Shōwa as "The Shōwa period of Ihei Kimura", dutifully ignoring the fact that at least a couple of the books -- most notably the recent, splendid, but horribly expensive Kimura Ihei no Pari -- already have English subtitles that give the man's name in its natural order. All because I must keep to a goofy rule designed not to upset the undereducated or to avoid disputes about gaijin tarento or whatever.

The reality is that common modern usage of Japanese names is tending towards GNFN. News to me. Where's the evidence for this? -- Hoary 11:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

And, by yielding to the main wikipedia naming convention of GNFN, we never have to judge the borderline cases if anyone is Japanese, Korean, or whatever. Before 1868, the distinction is not nearly as blurry as it is now, and, certain liberties (with WP conventions) can be taken. Neier 13:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I should have put "in English" somewhere in that sentence. I should also tell you that I agree with the principle that Japanese names (and Chinese, Korean, and everywhere else) should be in their native order. I just don't think it's practical here. We can't even agree to give Abe Shinzō his macron. The macron section says that people who care about different romanization schemes already know enough to look after themselves here; I would put forth that the same thing is true for "accurate" naming orders. Applying WP:NC(CN) to more recent people will give GNFN based on google hits (Kiichi Miyazawa -wiki: 54k/18k in favor of GNFN). For persons in the past, the pendulum will swing in the other direction. (Tokugawa Ieyasu: 170k/52k in favor of FNGN). Finding the inflection point is tricky, and 1868 is as good of a compromise as we are going to find, I fear. Neier 13:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Google hits! Just what kind of "encyclopedia" is this? (But I suppose I should be grateful: If it wasn't Google hits, it could be "How the name is mentioned in the Simpsons and Popular [US] Culture.") Putting aside such matters as the macron for Japan's top-ranking grandson of a war criminal, I still don't understand why the names of thousands of notable and unambiguously Japanese people should be reversed in order to avoid problems with a relative handful of ambiguously Japanese people (a disproportionate number of whom seem to be mere tarento). And I don't even see the problem with these people's names. The fully Japanese (I presume) トニー谷 was so called on his records, and トニー is obviously modeled on "Tony", so "Tony Tani" he is. (Or conceivably "Tonī Tani", but anyway not "Tani Tonī"). -- Hoary 13:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Hoary, you are the personification of everything that is wrong with wiki and the internet in general, one person who has a bee in his bonnet about something and won't listen to consenus and people with more experience and knowledge. You've been shown to be wrong about Hikaru Utada and Ken Domon and every other point. Monbusho has no successor, it is a current government department and prescribes the Japanese language. Anyone with any knowledge of Japan and Japanese should know this. Brettr 14:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

City names

On April 1, both Hamamatsu, Shizuoka and Niigata, Niigata became designated cities. In Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)/City naming#Group 1: Designated cities with unique names, we somewhat reached concensus to move some city articles to their name without , Prefecture. So, I was WP:BOLD and already moved Hamamatsu because it met the same criteria (Hamamatsu was already a redirect to Hamamatsu, Shizuoka).

Niigata is similar to Shizuoka, in that the DAB page links only to the prefecture and the city. In those two cases, I think that we could redirect the DAB to the city, and put a {{for}} tag on the top that points to the prefecture. DABs for other cities, such as Kawasaki, are more complicated, and should not be changed. Opinions? Neier 09:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)