EN>JA: Managing middle initials

[Kirill Sereda]

I was asked to translate a business card into Japanese for a friend, who happens to have a middle initial (J.) in his name.  What is the best way to handle middle initials in names when translating business cards?

 

Kirill

[Fred Uleman]

Are you going to produce an entirely-Japanese card?
Or are you going to have both Japanese and English on the card?

Because if it is going to be all Japanese, just drop the middle initial.
Because if it is going to be mixed, give the middle initial in the English and just provide the kana reading for the person's family name (leaving the middle initial as a conversation piece).

Is what I would want to do.

--
Fred Uleman

[Nikolai Karayev]

I guess I saw the business cards where the middle initial as such was
left as the Latin letter, like ジョン J. ジョーンズ.

Nikolai Karayev
Tallinn

> --
> To post: mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com
> List home: http://groups.google.com/group/honyaku
> FAQ: http://groups.google.com/group/honyaku/web
> Posters assume all responsibility for their posts; list owners do not
> review messages and accept no responsibility for the content of posts.

[Kirill Sereda]

Thanks, Fred! The card will be all Japanese; I think I'll drop the middle initial.

 

Kirill

[Kirill Sereda]

Thank you, Nikolai, I think I have seen such cards too. Perhaps I should ask
the man himself and let him decide.

Kirill

[Fred Uleman]

Re:

> Perhaps I should ask the man himself and let him decide.

Does the man himself know enough about Japan to make an intelligent decision?
(Conversely, of course, do we know enough about the man himself to make an intelligent decision?)

--
Fred Uleman

[S. Patrick Eaton]

Quoting Fred Uleman:

> Does the man himself know enough about Japan to make an intelligent
> decision?

I don't know if I know enough about Japan to make an intelligent
decision, but the Japanese side of my business card reads as follows:

S. パトリック　イートン

But then again, I use my first initial that way because my given name
inevitably surprises Japanese people who see it katakana. <g>

Best regards,

Sako Eaton

[Yoshiro Shibasaki]

There is no convention in Japan or Japanese on middle name because it is
not Japanese custom to have a middle name or initial. Sometimes it is
very important to put the middle initial to distinguish the individual
from another person with equally familiar names such as ジョン・F・ケネ
ディー and ジョージ・W・ブッシュ.

I always leave the person's middle initial in Roman alphabet for
business cards or any other translation, unless the person prefers to
spell out the middle name.

HTH

Yoshi

--

芝崎芳朗 Yoshiro Shibasaki, PhD Tel.: [+44]131-229-0878
Edinburgh, Scotland (UK) Fax: [+44]131-228-5117
Mobile: 07808 925 795
Scientific Translator/Interpreter/Consultant
English/German/Danish/Japanese (biomedical sciences)
http://www.transref.org/directory.asp?ID=2952
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~yoshi/resume.htm

[Fred Uleman]

On my card -- well, one of my cards -- my name is given as simply F・ウレマン.

For most people, this is no problem. Sometimes people ask what the "F" stands for. But at least they don't call me Fさん.

Yes, I have other cards with other versions, but this is the one I like best.

--
Fred Uleman

[Andy]

In some cases the middle initial is intrinsic to the name, such as マイケル・J・フォックス Michael J. Fox or ジョン・F・ケネディ John F. Kennedy. 

Another issue here is the use of nakagoro (・) between initials versus periods. 

I think in vertical format the use a nakagoro between names and initials is perhaps more appropriate as they center.  Horizontally you can go either way.

We produce quite a few business cards and our policy has been, in names, to use the initial unless we are advised otherwise. If we leave it out clients will come back and say we forgot their initial.

We produce a couple hundred business card translations every year.

Andy


_______________________________________________________________
Andrew Taylor
Japan Pacific Publications, Inc.
PO Box 3092 -- 519 6th Ave. S., Suite 220 -- Seattle, WA 98104
Tel: 206-622-7443 -- Fax: 206-621-1786

Japanese Translations and Typesetting • Japanese business cards
Publishers of the Soy Source -- Seattle's Japanese language newspaper

[Kirill Sereda]

A MASSIVE thank you to everybody to everybody who answered! Thank you guys for all the details! I asked the person who needed the card about the middle initial, and he decided, in his naiveté, but quite in line with Fred's suggestions, that the initial looked out of place on a Japanese-only card, so I removed it.

 

Another issue of interest I noticed is that, apparently, the title must precede the name on a Japanese business card (in most cases, it follows the name on an American/Chinese/European one).

 

Kirill

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy [mailto:an...@japanpacific.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 10:26 AM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: EN>JA: Managing middle initials

--