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| - Modern cultures use different conventions for what constitutes a personal name, resulting in all kinds of misunderstandings when speaking about foreign names. Additionally, there may be different conventions in the same country, most notably formal documents or lists sorted by family name. On this wiki, since most tropers are Westerners, the most noticeable of them is the treatment of Japanese names, usually when speaking about anime. Name orders include:
* Western: given name, followed by middle names (if any), followed by family name. Thus, William Shakespeare was William of the Shakespeare family. Since this is the convention best known to English speakers, the given and family name are usually called the "first" and "last" name in English. Incidentally, the only European culture that places the family name first is the Hungarians.
* Hispanic: given name, father's first family name, mother's first family name. Thus, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, prime minister of Spain, is the son of Juan Rodríguez and Purificación Zapatero. Common thing among Hispanics in other countries is to merge the two family names into one single surname, sometimes with a hyphen.
* Lusitanic: given name, mother's last family name, father last family name.
* Icelandic: given name, father's given name plus -sson if male or -sdottir if female. Thus, Ólafur Grímsson, President of Iceland, is Ólafur, son of Grím.
* France: the family name comes last, except in some official documents. Thankfully, it is sometimes clarified by putting the family name in all caps.
* Ancient Roman: given name, followed by the name of the clan (gens), followed by the name of a family within the clan. (Women, however, generally only had a given name.) Thus, Gaius Julius Caesar was Gaius of the Caesar family within the Julius clan. What creates confusion is arbitrary shortening of names: Caesar's one-time allies in the First Triumvirate, commonly known as Crassus and Pompey, had different components taken out, as their full names were Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. Some famous (or infamous) Romans got a fourth name (agnomen) for their achievements, such as Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who got the nickname Felix (fortunate).
* East Asian: for the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, family name, followed by given name. However, the names are often (and inconsistently) swapped in the West to match the Western convention: Thus, Hayao of the Miyazaki family, known as Hayao Miyazaki in the West, is known as Miyazaki Hayao (宮崎 駿) back in Japan. Korean given names consist of two syllables, usually hyphenated in the West (such as Kim Jong-il, Jong-il of the Kim family).
* Hong Kong: If a person has a Western given name in addition to a Chinese one, then in English-language sources their full name order will be the Western given name, followed by the family name, followed by the Chinese given name. For example, the Chief Executive Sir Donald Tsang Yam-Kuen, Yam-Kuen, or Donald, of the Tseng family.
* Chinese given names may be one or two syllable affairs and may or may not be hyphenated. In some cases, the second syllable maps directly into the western idea of a "middle name". For some, the English given name may be a pet name and may not appear in formal documents.
* To further complicate Japanese name transliterations, historical persons' (defined to be anyone born before Meiji Restoration) names are not supposed to be swapped around, ie. Tokugawa Ieyasu is Tokugawa Ieyasu in English, not Ieyasu Tokugawa (Except in other Western languages besides English). Too bad that they forgot to tell this to the Japanese who have a tendency to automatically swap name order in all names when writing them in the Latin alphabet, assuming that this is the correct way.
* Vietnamese often put their family names last in Western countries, but because about 40% of the country shares the last name Nguyen, newspapers will often refer to people by their first names. Mr. Thuc Nguyen might be Mr. Thuc in the news. Since everyone knows it's a first name, they assume the last name is Nguyen.
* Russian: given name, followed by patronymic, followed by family name. Thus, Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, was also known as Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov, which means Nikolai, son of Aleksandr, of the Romanovs family. The patronymic is often left out by Russians -- except when addressing or referring to someone deferentially (e.g., a teacher or significantly older acquaintance), in which case only the given name and patronymic will be used. And to add to the confusion, most Russian formal documents place the family name first; e.g., "Romanov Nikolai Aleksandrovich". One troper has heard of a case when the Japanese, upon seeing a Russian name written in this form, thought the patronymic was the given name because it came last.
* Arabic: a full-blown Arabic name has, in the following order, an optional kunya (a reverse patronymic, meaning mother/father of), an ism (a given name), a nasab (a patronymic or string of patronymics), a laqab (a descriptive, sort of like a nickname) and a nisba (a family laqab, closely approaching the European "family name"). Fortunately, most contemporary Arabs only use the given name and one or more patronymics on an everyday basis. Some countries have adopted fully western conventions, and most use them for international documents, though westerners may be required to construct such a full name for internal documents, such as visa applications. Examples of confusion:
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