It's great to see this thread gaining life after sitting idly for most of the month. I will try to summarize what graveworm and many others have brought up in recent post.

There is no controversy in that Chinese, Korean, and Japanese say and write their surname or family first, then their given name.  I am Korean and they do it exactly the same as do Chinese and Japanese. Korean and Japanese names also have meanings just as Chinese do, as official names are still written using similar Chinese characters.  Korean Chinese characters are even more traditional than Chinese Chinese characters as Chinese government has simplified many characters in the 20th century.  Some complex Japanese Chinese characters have also been simplified for their local use.

However, I disagree with graveworm on the meaning of Last name and First name. In English, Last name is synonymous with surname or family name.  First name is synonymous with given name.  I think this is uncontroversial.  When a Chinese says their family name is written or spoken first, this is not equivalent to saying that their family name is their first name, at least if they understand English.

For the purposes of the master name database (not the credits), we need to decide how to best put the names of these Asian cast and crew.  The fields for the names that Invelos specified clearly states, First name, Middle name, and Last name.  We can do it one of two ways.

1. Put it in backwords, so that First name is the surname, and Last name is the given name.  I think this is what graveworm is proposing.  The advantage is that most Chinese actors appearing with western actors in non-Asian movies will have their names credited in correct order without using the "as credited" option. The disadvantage is that the names are intentionally put in wrong.  Furthermore, in Asian movies, their names would be credited backwards if the user has set their preference to display names in Last, First Middle fashion, as most Asian users may (this is Asian users from Asian countries, although I don't know how many would use this program to catalog their DVDs).

2. Put it in with Last name as the surname, and First name as the given name. This is my proposal. The advantage is that names are put into the database in "correct" fashion given their English definition.  The names are also displayed in correct fashion for Asian actors appearing in Asian movies if the user sets their names to display names in Last, First Middle fashion.  The disadvantage is that for Asian actors appearing in non-Asian movies, the user is going to have to put the credits for these actors and crews in with the "as credited" option to have the names displayed in correct order.

In both cases, unless one uses "as credited" option for all actors and crew, Asian and non-Asian, some names are going to come up backwards depending on how one sets the name display property. Of the two options, I believe the second one is the better one. If the data in individual fields are correct, then program can be changed in the future to enable correct displaying of credits in the future (perhaps by using a checkbox in the master name to indicate that certain names should always be displayed Last, First Middle (for Asian actors) or First Middle Last (for non-Asian actors)).

In any case, I welcome this newfound interest in this topic and look forward to many more constructive comments.

I'm throwing my support for the second option - family name = last name, given name = first name.  It's been a while it should be like this.

I do have a couple of small questions.  Where both the Chinese name and English name are written in the credits, which one would be used?  For example, in many Shaw Brothers movies, you see both David Chiang (in English) and Chiang Dai-wei (in Chinese), and this may cause problems for the Credited As field.  In this case, we'd have to decide whether to give preference to the Chinese or English name (my guess would be the Chinese one given the movie is from Hong Kong).

Another possible problem is the romanisation of Korean names.  In 2000, the government changed the way to romanise certain sounds, taking away certain accents.  This poses some possible problems.  An example would be Kim Ki-duk.  Would the master name be 'Kim Ki-duk' or 'Gim Gi-deok'?  For this example, it would probably be the former because that's how he's known, but for lesser-known and up-and-coming cast/crew, it might be a bit hard.  For that matter, different releases in different countries may have the names spelt differently, so the master name may be hard to figure out.  I suppose the release in the CoO would be the one to go by.  Japanese names are a bit easier to handle, but I'm sure there'll be some exceptions, like everywhere else. 

I didn't mean to introduce a couple small obstacles, because I'm all for xradman's suggestion.  It's a great idea and high time it came about.

Quoting pat00139:

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Another possible problem is the romanisation of Korean names.  In 2000, the government changed the way to romanise certain sounds, taking away certain accents.  This poses some possible problems.  An example would be Kim Ki-duk.  Would the master name be 'Kim Ki-duk' or 'Gim Gi-deok'?  For this example, it would probably be the former because that's how he's known, but for lesser-known and up-and-coming cast/crew, it might be a bit hard.  For that matter, different releases in different countries may have the names spelt differently, so the master name may be hard to figure out.  I suppose the release in the CoO would be the one to go by.

Korean government recognized the problem with names with the revised romanization rules and did specifically allow traditional family names to remain as they were. So in case of Kim Ki-duk, his official romanized name would be Kim, Gi-deok.  Under the proposed rule, this would be his master common name and he can be credited as "Kim Ki-duk" where he is credited in English.  Also master names are based on their names in Korean and not in any foreign spellings, so it should not be difficult. What will be difficult is that revised romanization uses specific sounds for both consonents and vowels.

For example letter G in English can sound like J as in George or Gh as in Gas. In revised romanization of Korean (RRK), G can be used only as a harder Gh sound.  Similarly most vowels have both long and short sounds. Letter "i" can have a long sound as in ice or "ee" sound as in inn, but in RRK, letter "i" can be only used as "ee" sound.

Problems occur when certain combination of consonents and vowels combine to form certain familiar English words.  Well known Korean actor Jang, Dong-gun has traditionally written his name as Jang/Dong Gun.  If you read his name as an English speaker, his name sound almost exactly like his Korean name.  However under the RRK rules, his name must be read as Jang Dong Goon because the letter "u" must be pronounced "oo". His name under RRK has to be writtern as Jang/Dong-geon.

Another example is the movie, Shiri. It is sometimes written in romanized alphabets as Shiri as well as Swiri. Which is correct? Both are. Swiri is how the Korean title is romanized according to RRK. Shiri is the official International title given to this film by the film makers. Why did they call it Shiri instead of Swiri? It's because in English, Shiri sounds much more like the movie's Korean title than Swiri. Shiri by the way is the name of a fish which live in a stream that bisect North and South Korea.

Furthermore, RRK is English centric when it comes to pronounciation of certain consonent sounds, so European who pronounce letter "J" as "H" sound or "Y" sound could be confused.  Same for Germans who pronounce "W" as a "V" sound. In RRK, "W" is always pronounced as in English word, we or wise.

However, all in all, RRK is the law in Korea and I think the best option, is to use it to romanize all Korean names for the common master name database and use "as credited" option in relatively few cases where romanized names on screen differ from their master name.

Quoting ya_shin:

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FYI, I looked at it yesterday and it appeared to me, that the option to display names in reverse order has been removed from the program. maybe someone else can confirm.

Which version of the program are you using? In my version 3.0.2 Build 1120, it's in the Tools/Option menu under Actor Name Format.

First Middle Last or

Last, First Middle

Quoting xradman:

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Which version of the program are you using? In my version 3.0.2 Build 1120, it's in the Tools/Option menu under Actor Name Format.

First Middle Last or

Last, First Middle

Well, yes, but the only thing that that setting appears to effect is the display of names in the left-hand list box of the Cast/Crew edit page. It does not change the display of the cast and/or crew in the body of the program. At least not in my copy of 1124, or any previous I tested. I mentioned this in another thread shortly after 3.0 was released ...

Quoting sugarjoe:

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Quoting hydr0x:

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Just because there have been replies doesn't change what the thread is about, and that's the original proposal. Any general answer to a thread usually refers to the original post, otherwise it would be directed at a specific user or posted along with a quote...

I am afraid I can't follow you. But if you are unable to answer a specific question and instead prefer to give a general lecture about how threads works, well, then I can't really discuss anything with you. 

my post was about the original proposal made in this thread and i was just telling you that that's always/usually the case if one replies to a thread without quoting another answer or using an @user marker

However we do it, we would end up with a situation where it would show up as:

David Cheung
Li Gong

or
Cheung David
Gong Li

I think we should leave everything as it is for chinese actors with 2 names, as credited and no need to have something different as common name.

When it comes to the 3 names consisting of eastern and western part I follow Xradman's idea for the master database, because it allows linking to both name variations.

Quoting Peter von Frosta:

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Now I'm completely confused. You write your name in "ancient" chinese...?

No, when he said "Chinese Chinese" he was referring to Mainland China, where they use the Simplified character set, opposed to the Traditional characters used in Hong Kong (well, they even have a few more ) and Taiwan. So it's not "more traditional", just Tradiational