Thursday 1 September 2011

Personal names around the world

It's been a long time since I've done a post on Software. Time for this one, and the difficulties faced in making a database about something as simple as a name...

Personal names around the world
In many parts of the world, parts of names are derived from titles, locations, genealogical information, caste, religious references, and so on. Here are a few examples:

the Indian name Kogaddu Birappa Timappa Nair follows the order villageName-fathersName-givenName-lastName.

the Rajasthani name Aditya Pratap Singh Chauhan is composed of givenName-fathersName-surname-casteName.

in another part of India the name Madurai Mani Iyer represents townName-givenName-casteName.

the Arabic Abu Karim Muhammad al-Jamil ibn Nidal ibn Abdulaziz al-Filistini translates as "Father of Karim, Muhammad (given name), The beautiful, Son of Nidal, Son of Abdulaziz, the Palestinian". Karim is Muhammad's first-born son.

1 comment:

ellen said...

A nice big text field would work like a charm :)

The problem is the need some people feel to goosh everything into boxes on forms. I guess that's part of why I hate multiple choice exam questions.