Quoting northbloke:

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That situation I would say goes to personal choice - if you prefer to build the credits based on the japanese text, do so. If you're happier using the english text - that's fine too. All you have to do is specify which one you used in the contribution notes.
The other option would be to list both using dividers, but that's above and beyond.

If we do this, don't we end up with a database polluted with numerous duplicated names in the two orders? The usual way around this is to determine the common name then use Credited As, but that doesn't really apply here. Unless you're suggesting something like:

[Cast - Western order]
Mai Nakahara as Mai Tokiha
...

[Cast - Asian order]
Mai Nakahara [Nakahara Mai] as Mai Tokiha
...

I'm sure you'll agree this is horrible. Much more effective is to rename the fields "Given Name" and "Family Name", then we only need a single entry.

The Common Name, in my opinion, needs to reflect the person's actual name, not how they are credited on a particular DVD. That's the whole point of the Credited As field. Given that "First Name" and "Last Name" do not have universal meanings, whereas "Given Name" and "Family Name" do, I believe changing to the latter would eliminate the confusion.

Quoting EnryWiki:

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In the English language, Last Name and Family Name are synonyms even when talking about Chinese last names.

Here is an example from a randomly picked web site:

http://www.chinapage.com/biography/lastname.html

Hmm interesting except the character doesn't mean last name and A wife's name stays the same after marriage. Other than that it's pretty good. 

Quoting northbloke:

Quote:
Simple questions Skip:

Is Gong Li's common name Gong//Li or Li//Gong?
Is Chow Yun-Fat's common name Chow//Yun-Fat or Yun-Fat//Chow?

It doesn't matter at all since all the common name does is link all films the person appears in.

The problem is that we are confrontated with a couple of problems/unanswered questions. First of all:

What does first/middle/last name means?

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If first=given, middle=second and last=surname (and to me it seems that the community thinks this way) then the next question is:

How to parse asian names for the COMMON NAME? Before we can answer this question:

How to romanize asian names written in asian characters in the film credits?

How to deal with the problem "Yu" or "Yoo" (I'm sure there are international standards for it and we should use the standards for english speaking part of this world)? Should we write "Yun Fat" or "Yun-Fat" or "Yun-fat" (I'm sure there are also international standards for it)?

It must be clear that "Yun Fat" is ONE name (as "Bonham Carter" is ONE name)

Why should we do this? To get a consistent database with a working linking system where we can sort names alphabetically! (Can anyone tell me how asian sorts their names?  )

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If first=first, middle=middle and last=last name on screen, ok, but what is a name? Is Bonham a middle or part of the last name? Is "Fat" a middle or part of the last name?

And what about sorting alphabetically?

This way of parsing is much easier for "newbies" but there are as many problems as in the first mentioned solution.

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And no one, defintitely NO ONE want to change the appearances of the names as on screen, that what are the "credit as" functionality is for.

But the first question to be answered:
What does first/middle/last name means?

And that's Ken's job! Only he knows where he wants to go with the name database.

We should go step by step or we get lost in endless discussions.

Quoting schizzzo:

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The problem is that we are confrontated with a couple of problems/unanswered questions. First of all:

What does first/middle/last name means?

For a lot of Chinese actors their names are a phrase like Morning Sun or Happy Dragon etc. So they are not family or given names. It's all to do with the limited number of surnames.

Quote:

How to parse asian names for the COMMON NAME? Before we can answer this question:

How to romanize asian names written in asian characters in the film credits?

How to deal with the problem "Yu" or "Yoo" (I'm sure there are international standards for it and we should use the standards for english speaking part of this world)? Should we write "Yun Fat" or "Yun-Fat" or "Yun-fat" (I'm sure there are also international standards for it)?

There are international standards but you need to know where in China they were born

Quote:
Why should we do this? To get a consistent database with a working linking system where we can sort names alphabetically! (Can anyone tell me how asian sorts their names?  )

It depends on the number of strokes and their direction on the character. Chinese children spend a long time learning to use a dictionary.

Quoting Graveworm:

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Well at the moment we are supposed to pick the most common according to the credit lookup tool.

The problem with using the credit lookup tool in this situation is that there hasn't been a consistent way of entering the names into Profiler so we end up with skewed results.
At least with western names you know that even if they type in the wrong name, they've typed it in the right way round! With asian names we don't even have that guarantee!

Quoting Graveworm:

Quote:
Quoting northbloke:

Quote:
Simple questions Skip:
Is Gong Li's common name Gong//Li or Li//Gong?
Is Chow Yun-Fat's common name Chow//Yun-Fat or Yun-Fat//Chow?

It doesn't matter at all since all the common name does is link all films the person appears in.

It does matter! The fields are not only used for linking purposes. They are displayed prominently in profiler's credit display and have semantics of there own (indicated by the field names).

Quoting schizzzo:

Quote:
But the first question to be answered:
What does first/middle/last name means?

And that's Ken's job! Only he knows where he wants to go with the name database.

We should go step by step or we get lost in endless discussions.

I am not Ken, and won't presume to speak for him, but I do stand by my previous statement...

Ken is an American and the Amverican standard, when labeling name fields is as follows:

First Name = first given name
Middle Name = second given name
Last Name = surname

In my opinion, and it is just my opinion, absent any clarification from Ken we should go with the standard of the country where the program was written.