What Should Be the Naming Convention for Japanese Royals?

Question

So I am currently working on a project on adding the Japanese Royal Family and list of Emperors as far back as possible.  I am currently listing the members as follows:

First Name: Personal Name Before Becoming Ruler

Example: Oki-ko

Preferred First Name: Title

Example: Empress

Last Name: Name as Ruler

Example: Meisho

Is this an okay way to list them?

Comments

ooohh... interesting... I might get involved in adding famous Japanese Go players (who, by the way, often changed their names many times throughout their lifetime).

Answer 1

Great question! I don't have the power to do it for you, so change please add the tag categorization to your question and change to Policy and Style so more people will pick up on it.

Answer 2

WikiTree wants to use the names and locations in the form used in the place and time of the profile. That would mean in her case 明正天皇 (Meishō-tennō), her imina was 興子 (Oki-ko). Currently, WikiTree is ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of non-European naming conventions, clearly LNAB (Last Name at Birth) does not apply here as she did not use a last name. Following EuroAristo practice her clan name could go there if she would not have been of the imperial family. Putting her first name as Oki-ko and Current Last Name as Meishō-tennō (both in Japanese script) and Empress Meishō as Other Last Name would be following the current style guide. I don't know what it would do to the appearance of the profile, though.

Comments

So I listed each name with the Romanji (Spelling with English Letters) and Kanji (Spelling with Japanese Characters), as well as their title as the other last name.  Hope that fixes it

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I wish we would have a platform to discuss such issues including people with the tech know-how. We are facing so many obstacles with the current template with respect to non-European conventions when at the same time the aspirations are clearly to include everybody in the fashion of their culture.

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Indeed - see: http://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Van_Riebeeck-1

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You have many name variants over at WikiData both labels in all languages and also special fields

• Property:P97 Nobel title
• Property:P53 Nobel family
• Property:P1477 Birth name
• Property:P735 Given name

Every item in WikiData has a label and this label can be in more languages ==> Find all labels in all languages for Q299179 emperor of Japan Kōm

• Result Query

• same for Fushimi Q373949 
  WikiTree profile Fushimi-tennō_伏見天皇-1

  Query 
  

A try to query after Nobel family Imperial House of Japan Q909452 
members of the extended family of the reigning Emperor of Japan

?person wdt:P53* wd:Q909452 . 

and return names in en and jp 
Result with images , columns
Query  http://tinyurl.com/hyxuo29

if the WikiTree property P2949 is set you have a link to WikiTree 

Bic Pic

Emperor Kōmei is item wd:Q299179 ==> https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q299179 

on that page at the top you have labels in more languages

ex...
ja Japanese 孝明天皇  etc....
ko 고메이 천황
zh 孝明天皇

Reasonator is a more user friendly view of WikiData with Timeline etc it also has links back to WikiTree if property P2949 has been set
Q299179 ==> https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?q=Q299179

Same Query to WikiData but return a Timeline 
if the WikiTree property P2949 is set you have a link to WikiTree 

 Bic pic

 

 

 

Answer 3

I am working on Indonesian liineages. There is no common naming system in the islands, as there are over 400 tribal groups who only became part of a nation in 1945. So you have naming systems so alien to western ones, and in some tribes (like the Javanese and Balinese) multiple conventions depending on caste (they are or were Hindu) , position in family and other variables. All the best.

Answer 4

One very useful artifact I discovered in dealing with profiles resulting from Gedcom imports is that many of their profiles contain a sub paragraph heading called ===Name===.   For many profiles this is superfluous, but it's very useful where some explanation is needed regarding the name.

I am promoting use of the ===Name=== subparagraph heading on profiles where the explanation for the word that has been placed in the LNAB field is not readily apparent.  A simple sentence works well for Chinese names, for instance:  "This is a Chinese name.  In Chinese names, the surname is placed first."  Even though by now we have a convention for Cymru names, it probably would help understanding if the ===Name=== field on a Welsh profile said, "This is a Welsh name.  Gwladys ferch Gruffudd means Gladys, daughter of Griffith."  

Some naming issues will probably be beyond solution in WikiTree.  I'm thinking of some peoples who believe that evil will come upon you if your name becomes known.  So the name given at birth becomes a secret to be protected at all costs, and the person lives their life under a series of false names in order to ward off evil.