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Former Indonesian president Soeharto is a case in point. Soeharto is the only name he has. He has no surname. Centrelink would probably need to code Soeharto's name as "S. Soeharto" if he were to receive an age pension (but he'd probably fail the assets test).It is a problem when one is faced with a system that was designed around the concept of surnames. Take airlines for example. For all intents and purposes, there is only one flight management system in this world. And it will refuse to take a NULL value for the surname field. In fact, the whole passenger identification process is based on surnames.
Confusion over names also plays havoc with credit checks, due diligence, establishing ownership, database searches for directorships, checking criminal records and employment histories, and confirming academic records of prospective staff.
Indonesian airlines mandate that someone who does not have a surname use their name in the surname field. So the late former Indoesian president would be Suharto/Suharto on his airline ticket. ^_^''
Full article reproduced below.
What's in a name? There's often more to a character than characters
MICHAEL BACKMAN
30 July 2004
© 2004 Copyright John Fairfax Holdings Limited.
ASIA ONLINE
Understanding Asian names is a big obstacle to doing business in Asia for many non-Asians. The names are unfamiliar in sound and structure, and the structures vary across Asia.
Getting someone's name right is not only important for politeness. There are other implications for business. One is that many computer programs such as those that send out bank statements are often set up assuming Western-style naming patterns. Fields require a surname and a personal name, but what if an individual doesn't have a surname? This is the case for many Javanese. Former Indonesian president Soeharto is a case in point. Soeharto is the only name he has. He has no surname. Centrelink would probably need to code Soeharto's name as "S. Soeharto" if he were to receive an age pension (but he'd probably fail the assets test).
Confusion over names also plays havoc with credit checks, due diligence, establishing ownership, database searches for directorships, checking criminal records and employment histories, and confirming academic records of prospective staff.
One problem is a shortage of surnames in some Asian countries.
Koreans have been required to have surnames for only about 100 years. There are about 75 million ethnic Koreans in the world. But they share just 270 surnames. Most opted for names that were associated with the aristocracy and so most Koreans today have one of only half a dozen surnames. About a quarter have the surname of Kim. Another quarter are either Lee, Park, Choi or Chung.
Surnames are in short supply in the Philippines too. This was due to a decision in the mid-19th century to have only a small number of permissible surnames. So even today, most Filipinos have one of a small number of surnames. Given that the country's population is now 85 million, millions have the same surname and thousands the same full name.
To avoid mistaken identity, many Filipinos carry certificates from the National Bureau of Investigation to prove they are not wanted for some sort of criminal act. Others find it difficult to obtain a credit card because someone with the same name is a bad debtor.
Indian Sikhs represent an extreme case of there being restricted surnames, as all male Sikhs have the surname Singh. (In Malaysia, Sikhs are actually referred to as Singhs.) And all female Sikhs share the Kaur surname.
Before 1943, no person in Laos had a family name. Laotians were identified by a given name only. Then in that year a law was passed that required every person to have a family name.
Today, Laotians follow Western practice and use their family name last. Thais do this too but it is common to address Thais by their given name even if you don't know them.
Name changing introduces another complication, one common in Thailand, where names are associated with luck. If someone has a run of bad luck they might decide it is because their name is unlucky. Criminals who get caught sometimes change their names so that they might have better luck next time. Top businessmen who have had financial troubles sometimes shed their names along with their debts.
Apichet Kittikorncharoen, lead singer in the Thai band D2B, had his named changed for him. A car accident in August 2003 left him in a coma, so Thailand's Buddhist grand patriarch was engaged to bless him with a new name, Panrawat. It means "to remain alive according to the desires of loved ones".
Suseree Tavedikul, Thailand's former ambassador to The Hague, changed his name after being dismissed from the civil service. He'd actually sold his country's embassy to a local developer in 1999 without authorisation from Bangkok. He claimed he was duped into it, but that didn't explain why his signature appeared on the contract of sale and his initials on each of its 15 pages. The name change presumably was to put an end to this run of "bad luck".
Transliterations from Chinese, Thai, Tamil or Hindi characters can introduce further complications. In Hong Kong, it is not unusual for members of one Chinese family to have different surnames when rendered in English. It can often depend on which government official registered the birth and their preferred way of translating Chinese names. In this way, a Mr Tsang might have a brother who is a Mr Chang for example. Tsao is sometimes spelt as Chao, and so on.
Identifying the sex of someone by his or her name can be problematic. Normally this means getting used to male Chinese personal names compared with female Chinese names. Chin Chuen Wei, for example, is an obviously male Chinese name for those in the know. Chin Mei Yuen is an obviously female name. The Chin in both cases is the family name. However, there are times when it's not clear even to the Chinese and they need to see the actual Chinese characters to be sure of the person's sex.
But in Vietnam, some given names are popular for both men and women so "sex indicators" are incorporated into a person's whole name. The indicator for a male is "Van" and "Thi" is for a female. So Tran Van Hien Sinh is a name for a Vietnamese male and Ngo Thi Thanh Minh would be a Vietnamese female. The first part of each name is the family name. The second part is the sex indicator. The final two parts are the first and second given names.
These are just some of the complications of names in Asia. There are many more. And then there is the matter of pronunciation. Here's just one example: the king of Thailand is King Bhumipol. But it's pronounced "poomy-pon". Almost no Thai names are actually said how they read.
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