Japan To Go Back To Traditional Naming Order

Tokyo: After more than a century of adapting to international conventions, Japan now wants the rest of the world to call its people by using their surnames first, in accordance with the country’s linguistic tradition. Foreign Minister Taro Kono, addressing a recent press conference on Friday, urged international organisations to implement this change, along with national media houses that have publications in English, Efe news reported.

In Japanese custom, the surname comes before the name, which, however is done away with when the names are romanised, or written in Latin script. It was during the Meiji era (1868-1912), a period marked by the country’s opening up to the rest of the world, that Japan began to adapt to American and European conventions, allowing first name to precede surname. However, this was not the case in Korea, China and Vietnam, the countries that have the same system of putting surnames first in their local language as well as foreign ones.

Japanese Prime Minister is known as Abe Shinzo in Japanese, while the rest of the world calls him Shinzo Abe, unlike in the cases of South Korean President Moon Jae-In, Chinese President Xi Jinping and their Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Phu Trong, all of whom are referred to by their surnames first across languages. Kono, during his press conference said now was the right time to implement it, ahead of the large international events that are coming up, among them the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. (IANS)

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