Recent replies to "What's in an Asian name?"

Reply from Wang Song

Wang Song — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:39:21 -0000

It is really a interseting question.Especially when we translate it into Chinese,it is confusing.We must notice that many Chinese characters share the same pronunciation.For example,my name is Song Wang,actually is”王崧“in Chinese,but maybe ”王松” is also right.

Reply from Maxine Clarke

Maxine Clarke — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:05:33 -0000

And the news feature cross-links to this very forum ;-)

Reply from Corie Lok

Corie Lok — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:58:31 -0000

FYI, Nature has just run a good news feature article about precisely this topic. It has some good graphics showing, in Chinese, how two Chinese names appear the same in English but are completely different. It also discusses near the end some strategies (eg id numbers) for uniquely identifying authors.

Reply from Wen Jiang

Wen Jiang — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:56:05 -0000

Despite the fact it might be confusing when it comes to locating certain persons with his/her translated name, I believe such issue is not just limited to non-English names. Certain common English names also tend to cause issues when an internet search results in multiple identities. Additional tags including affiliation and research interests may certainly reduce this problem.

One of the key aspects of international scientific journals is to standardize the communications between scientists of different backgrounds from various countries that do not generally speak the same native tongue. Take Nature Nano for example. It is communicated through the English language. Similarly, scientific journals published elsewhere use languages that they find suitable, in many cases, it is dictated by the audience. Therefore, if majority of the readers of Nature Nano are English speakers, then the effectiveness of adding a feature incorporating a non-standard language is questionable, which brings me to the final point.

Introducing native languages corresponding to the name can potential simplify the identification process of the persons involved for people who understand the language. However, I only see limited benefit for others. Using Chinese characters as an example, if I can not read the characters, then to me, the name (despite how specific it is to a Chinese speaker) is simply a complicated version of symbols that adds additional confusion, and most likely, I will still end-up going through the traditional search method to identify the author using their English translated version. Therefore, instead of adding the unique language feature, would it be more beneficial to provide additional tags that may narrow down the selection field? For example, can affiliations or education background be incorporated into the Nature search?

Reply from Cesar Sanchez

Cesar Sanchez — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:32:58 -0000

I see two different aspects here:

(1) We all like to read our name correctly spelled. Actually, I just realized that PubMed now includes written accents and tildes in author names (at least for Spanish names, such as “Sánchez” or “Braña”). I assume adequate software is currently available to deal with different alphabets or writing systems (am I assuming too much?). Hence, I don´t see why your name should not be properly written, wherever you come from.

(2) Anyway, some people do have identical names. The solution is obvious: a unique author identifier should be implemented. Ideally, the identifier should be universal: accepted by all databases and journals. Here at Nature Network, Martin Fenner´s blog has recently mentioned the launching of ResearcherID by Thomson Scientific. Other relevant links:

Unique Author Identification, PLoS

Authors, Authors: Thomson Scientific and Elsevier Scopus Search Them Out, Information Today

The Universal Author Identifier System, dLIST

Reply from Maxine Clarke

Maxine Clarke — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:42:37 -0000

For many if not all authors, the issue is also what “external databases” do—for example ISI and Scopus (for citation analysis and the main independent indicator of credit), or PubMed (essential for those working in the biomedical sciences).

Reply from Shuming Nie

Shuming Nie — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:43:20 -0000

I believe that this initiative would have a positive impact in recognizing scientific contributions from authors in non-English speaking countries, especially from Asia-Pacific countries. With nearly 90 millions people in China currently with the family name of Wang, it is almost impossible to which Wang has done what. When all are translated into nondescriptive English, it is a nightmare every time that I search a person with that surname in the ISI databases. The use of native characters will definitely help authors and readers who speak that language.

Reply from Ai Lin Chun

Ai Lin Chun — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:48:39 -0000

At first sight, the initiative seems positive because it does narrow down the names to some extent as Masa has mentioned. However, I think it still might have several drawbacks when it comes to searching.

I will refer to the Chinese characters as kanji below for simplicity.

a) It might be useful only to native speakers of the language. Kanji’s are complex and some are difficult to even recognise. They are not like having umlauts. Even with umlauts, one needs to know that ‘oe’ is the same as o with the umlaut.

b) Do we not need special software and/or keyboard to type them? I can type them on my computer but I would still need to know how to read them or key them in as either pin-yin (i.e. the Chinese tone marks mentioned by Jon) or hiragana (i.e. one of the 4 writing systems in the Japanese language) before the computer can give a number of possible kanji’s for that reading. Many Japanese kanji’s can be read in so many ways that it is often difficult even for the native speakers. For example, a kanji like 川 is read as ‘kawa’ when on its own and ‘gawa’ when with something else.

c) The next question then is so what if we can key these in and recognise them? We still do not know if they are who we are looking for as Masa has mentioned. From an editorial point of view, this remains less than useful. Unless of course, people have posted their profiles on this network (or have a website) and we’ve seen their picture and gotten to know them through emails or some form of contact at a conference.

Reply from Maxine Clarke

Maxine Clarke — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:33:07 -0000

It would be helpful for us, the Nature editors, to know from our authors and readers what would be the most useful for us to introduce.
We could introduce Chinese, Korean and Japanese characters along with the English versions of their names in the journal. How helpful would this be? We understand the “Wei Wang” point, but would appreciate suggestions from the community as to what would be most useful for them.

Reply from Jon Moulton

Jon Moulton — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:15:30 -0000

The addition of Chinese characters would decrease ambiguity with very little cost in paper space, a nice benefit of the efficiency of Chinese characters. Of course, not all Asian languages share this benefit.

I see many umlauts and accents above letters in the names of authors. Why is this flexibility apparently offered only to authors whose names use “western” alphabets? Why aren’t the tone marks of pinyin used with Chinese author’s names, which in itself would remove some ambiguity and help with pronunciation.

In an English-speaking journal it makes sense to present a version of an author’s name which is approximately pronounceable for an English speaker, but also presenting the author’s name in its “original” form allows cross-referencing to the literature of countries using that form.

If the press can support the character set, then it seems obvious…do it.

Reply from Masahiro Yamashita

Masahiro Yamashita — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 07:13:25 -0000

Hi Ai Lin,

Interesting post.

I, personally do not think it makes a lot of difference…

According to the “Which Wei Wang?” article, there are “eight Chinese names 王伟, 王薇, 王维, 王蔚, 汪卫, 汪玮, 汪威, and 汪巍 all transliterate as Wei Wang” so it is confusing.

However, even if you could write your name like Wei Wang (汪卫), you are still not sure if it is the person you know, unless you contact the person or look at which institute they are from.

And if you are going to look up, you may just put your name in English only.

However, if the name Wei Wong is so popular that there could be several Wei Wong in one research lab, then it may be helpful…