Over the past months, I've been noticing on Websites and CD cases that many artists have been writing their names in the roman alphabet along side their own native language. This usually goes in a Given Family order, instead of the preferred Family Given.

Eastern artists must be written in the proper 'surname firstname' format (e.g. Japanese/Chinese/Korean). For artists which have a preferred romanisation, use this one. If you're unsure of your artist's name, then check previously ranked maps, Google, Wikipedia, or ask a BAT for help.

I would like to discuss on " For artists which have a preferred romanisation, use this one." when it comes to artists using their own names (Aoi Eir, Shimotsuki Haruka, etc) concerning CDs, Websites, games and what actual romanisation should mean.

I would like to add somewhere, or rewrite the rule to include this:

When an artist uses their real life name, romanisation must be as they write their name in their native language.

Holy crap I'm bad when it comes to writing rules. But it's a start.. Anyone else with a better way to reword this, please step up.

Examples below. (These are all Japanese, as I'm not familiar with Korean, Chinese, or other any others)
Websites:
http://nbcuni-music.com/maon/
http://www.tomatsuharuka.com/
http://www.mizukinana.jp/
http://minori-smiledays.jugem.jp/

CDs:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wj5Sd3aZFus/U ... IGNITE.jpg
http://www.generasia.com/w/images/thumb ... N_2003.jpg
http://blog-imgs-45.fc2.com/a/r/t/artw0 ... _q90v2.jpg

As you can see, these artists who we normally write on our maps in Family Given order have their romanisation in Given Family. This is common on the majority of famous artist sites these days.

What I'm proposing is that the Romanized field, when using the artist names themselves be romanized to their native language instead of a 'preferred romanisation.'
For example, in the first CD link | We should use Aoi Eir instead of Eir Aoi, even though the CD is written as "Eir Aoi" which would be a preferred romanisation.

The reasons being so, is that we should be sticking to how they prefer their names to be said in their home country, instead of outside of what foreigners would naturally see them by. To me, a romanisation is a way of showing how to pronounce the name in the romanized alphabet for those who can't read it otherwise, not to make an alternative writing by going Given Family. This will also help maintain consistency in the game.

I would also like to point out and include composers to this list as well. Almost all of them are currently being written in Given Family format because of how their game company prefers to write them instead of their native writing. (I honestly wonder why credits in Japanese games are sometimes in full English). A famous one would be Shimomura Youko or Kajiura Yuki (though we seem to be getting this one right most of the time)

TL;DR version: Keep Artists in the format their home language uses when using romanization, not based on what their Websites/CDs/Games say when they use their name.

I personally think artist names which are written in a given family order should be considered as title logo or something, the main reason why a given family order is often used is just because it looks cooler for native Japanese people (sure same goes for me though..). Well this might be just me, also probably kidna off topic.


About what Lanturn suggested, I totally agree. Other than that, I don't have anything else to say for now.

Yes, agree~ This is what I always tend to mention in my previous mods and I will go on~

I support it:>

Support!

Of course, I will support this one.

I fully agree on this, I think we should respect their original names, either artistic or not. Maybe I'm already used to them, but dunno, that's my opinion on this.

Yup. This one is useful to avoid confusion between names.

Don't agree.

You're essentially proposing to impose your own idea(s) of what is the correct name order on every artist because it's 'native' whilst ignoring the fact that promotions, credits, officially released material etc., can (and do) say something opposite.

If an artist is selling and promoting their material using a 'given family' name then it would be common sense to say that that's what they want to use and it's a preferred romanisation, I don't think we should be correcting the artists themselves so the current rule is fine as is.

Rules like this also create inconsistency. No one uses Shimomura Youko and neither does the artist herself, why then would it be a good idea to suddenly start using it? I don't think we should be creating inconsistencies with the artist, their material and the rest of the web just to impose a frivolous rule.

I can't see one good reason for this proposed rule.

Pretty much what Shulin said; if we are such sticklers for correct metadata these days, why suddenly back track on that ideology? IMO following what is set out by the artists themselves should always be the priority when it comes to this.

@Shulin & Lust
This is the reason for the post I made. So we can maintain a consistent method of using the Romanized Artist field. It's about ignoring these things so we can focus on a simple system on how romanization can be used. If anything, I would like to abolish "preferred romanization" while using the other methods of romanization discussed in other threads (Using modified hepburn and such)

Websites around the world have set rules how they do things. For example: VGMDB Puts all artists in Given Family format while writing down directly what the back of the CD case has for Title metadata. Why can't we do this? Other big name sites like Google, Wikipedia, and so on also do this. I'm bringing up discussion on this rule early so we can get it down straight as artists are becoming bigger in places other than their home country.

It's about respecting the artist themselves by calling them how they would normally be addressed in their home country. If you look on any of Shimomura Youko's websites, you can see that she uses her name normally. The only time the 'preferred romanization' is used is on Square-Enix's websites, CD titles, and games, and to be honest. I see this as more of how square enix prefers to write her name so she can be recognized by the western audience a lot easier. On her latest CD. The only time "Yoko Shimomura" is shown is in the album title. Everywhere else written inside the CD is shown with her real name.

A really good example is this video link. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmdJ6-xdyNk | Never once does Shimomura Youko refer to herself as Yoko Shimomura. This is a really good reason why I'm proposing artist's that use their own names to be true to their native language, to respect their name more. As for using Youko vs Yoko, the writing system I was using is based off the Modified Hepburn system that's already being discussed on the other ranking criteria threads. I personally agree with Yoko over Youko, though I contradict myself because I prefer Itou Kanako over Ito, which is why I don't dive into the topic much.
Another interview video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abp19GGG9Ps (3:03 ish)

It may be imposing my own ideas, but with all this to discuss on, why shouldn't we? It brings more respect to the artist because we're addressing them to how they honestly preferred to be called at home.

There would be way more consistency. Having half of the artists using Given Family, while the other half using Family Given would only bring more confusion to the ranking system, and the game itself. The only things that wouldn't be consistent is the composers which I've already noted, and shouldn't be treated any differently. Why should they be going by Given Family, while the rest of the artists go by Family Given. This isn't about coping to certain artists, but to all artists, in and out of Japan, including composers. The idea is to bring more consistency to this game, and this proposed method is a way to maintain it as "preferred romanization" could change at any given time or it already has in the past.
Look through all of Itou Kanako's CDs as it swaps Family Given numerous, numerous times, and if you followed the CD for each track, there would be half one side, and half the other. Also, Aoi Eir has never had a romanization until that recent CD, and even on her website, she never uses it.

Like KSHR said though, the 'preferred romanization' is seen more like a logo than anything. When it comes down to it, we should be using their names instead of those logos. This is personal preference though.

TL;DR
It gives more respect to the artist than a CD/Game/Website could ever, since they themselves say their name in their own Family Given format.
It will bring way more consistency since romanizations can be changed constantly on websites.

Basically in the end, I'm telling us to break away from "correct" metadata so we can have a consistent system that works, and has a fairly good reason to do so.

Lanturn wrote:

TL;DR
It gives more respect to the artist than a CD/Game/Website could ever, since they themselves say their name in their own Family Given format.
It will bring way more consistency since romanizations can be changed constantly on websites.

Basically in the end, I'm telling us to break away from "correct" metadata so we can have a consistent system that works, and has a fairly good reason to do so.

I don't think your perceived "respect" is a good enough reason to break away from correct metadata. You've linked an interview where the title clearly says Yoko Shimomura, she has two albums titled "the very best of Yoko Shimomura", her twitter says Yoko Shimomura and this is what pretty much everyone else is using when romanizing her name; I think we should be using common sense here and looking to what is in common use.

It's also odd that you say changing to Family Given format would create consistency because if you search osu! with Shimomura Yoko...

https://osu.ppy.sh/p/beatmaplist?q=shim ... 4&g=0&la=0

That in itself should show that imposing this rule would create more inconsistency and it would not be the only case. If you want to keep consistency check previously ranked and submitted maps and see what is most commonly used - the current rule allows for this.

We can use Japanese characters in the artist field and you can prefer non-English metadata, I think that's enough to keep this sense of "native-ness" and "respect" so we don't need this rule.

What is a few artists to the hundreds of others? It is an English made video from E3 2014 (from USA), and the one below it was a concert from USA as well. Despite being overseas, they themselves will still call them by their own native name. I've pointed out the reasons about title logos, and twitter/facebook really isn't an ideal source, twitter isn't as bad, but facebook I don't even think allows you to choose the preferred Family or Given order. If you want, maybe we can have a 'list of exceptions' because their name is already so popularly known on osu, though I'm not sure what the response would be. Read more on consistency issues below.

There have been a few recently ranked maps where metadata has been listed in Given Family because their name appears on the album as such and it already breaks this said consistency as you were explaining. There have been others asking why after ranking you didn't use Family / Given order like the rest of the maps in the set, and the answer has always, well it appears like this on the album, and that makes the inconsistencies skyrocke. Anyone could use the above as a reasoning and then in turn, create a massive turn of inconsistencies. I believe we need to press more heavily on "Eastern artists must be written in the proper 'surname firstname' format (e.g. Japanese/Chinese/Korean)" because at this rate, the rule would be moving closer and closer to becoming pointless with how music is being spread across the world. A sub rule shouldn't be taking over a dominant rule, and I believe we need to make this change because of it. "Correct Metadata" is only going to get us so far before we start smashing our heads against the walls and want to rip our computers apart, because of its inconsistencies.

Shimomura, as I mentioned in my previous post would be one of the artists that wouldn't be consistent anymore compared to the maps ranked before, but in turn would create consistencies with all artists from this point out.

The current rule to maintain consistency doesn't exist, It doesn't show it anywhere in the metadata ranking criteria. It will make many future maps inconsistent because all it will take is a sudden "oh, let's stylize this CD by using the artists's Given Family name in romanized letters!" This is pretty much the case with Aoi Eir as mentioned above as well. https://osu.ppy.sh/s/174309 This map recently had its name swapped from Family to Given, even though we had 4 ranked mapsets before it because of a CD scan just so happened to use the "Given Family" format when it finally got released.

Basically again it's come down to the fact that "preferred romanization" is going to create more and more problems and inconsistencies instead of finding a fair enough way to use a system with fair reasonings. I don't really have much to add on to this as we've been talking in circles (or at least I have). I really hope we can get more opinions in here about this from other users.

I'm spent I think. I really don't have much more to say. I'd really like to hear more opinions outside of both Shulin and I on this idea. We aren't the only people in the world

As a Chinese (Teochew), I'm an example of this.

My real name is Eng Kai Hang as my family name 黄 (Huang), in Teochew, was spelled as "Eng" (NOT "an", but something like 恩 or "em" with the m changed to n), but since the default one will be based on Mandarin's one, my name will be displayed as Huang Kai Hang which I don't like.

Almost all Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese uses Chinese dialects to name their Romanized/English (?) name (Examples: Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka etc.) rather than follow Mandarin. However, some of the families, whose primary language was Mandarin instead of Chinese dialects, are exceptions.

(So this rule doesn't applies to most Chinese in China at all)

EDIT: I definitely support this.

Shulin wrote:

Lanturn wrote:

TL;DR
It gives more respect to the artist than a CD/Game/Website could ever, since they themselves say their name in their own Family Given format.
It will bring way more consistency since romanizations can be changed constantly on websites.

Basically in the end, I'm telling us to break away from "correct" metadata so we can have a consistent system that works, and has a fairly good reason to do so.

I don't think your perceived "respect" is a good enough reason to break away from correct metadata. You've linked an interview where the title clearly says Yoko Shimomura, she has two albums titled "the very best of Yoko Shimomura", her twitter says Yoko Shimomura and this is what pretty much everyone else is using when romanizing her name; I think we should be using common sense here and looking to what is in common use.

It's also odd that you say changing to Family Given format would create consistency because if you search osu! with Shimomura Yoko...

https://osu.ppy.sh/p/beatmaplist?q=shim ... 4&g=0&la=0

That in itself should show that imposing this rule would create more inconsistency and it would not be the only case. If you want to keep consistency check previously ranked and submitted maps and see what is most commonly used - the current rule allows for this.

We can use Japanese characters in the artist field and you can prefer non-English metadata, I think that's enough to keep this sense of "native-ness" and "respect" so we don't need this rule.

Not to Japanese, but how about Chinese? There are a LOT of Chinese dialects.

Let me tell you a story about a girl named 森永真由美. 森永真由美 is a vocalist who has worked on songs for Konami's beatmania IIDX series (and other) games. Do you know how they write 森永真由美?

It's not 森永真由美.

It's also not Morinaga, Mayumi.

It's Mayumi Morinaga, despite the fact that it is obviously reversed name order. Every song credited to her has her name this way. Even on official Konami websites, and in game, it says Mayumi Morinaga. I assume the reasoning for this is because they're not even using Japanese characters. Most of the time when Japanese speakers use the Roman alphabet, they also use punctuation and follow the same sentence structure that the language itself does. Else it would .siht ekil kool gnikcuf

As an English speaker, you wouldn't go and write Japanese backwards, would you? そう

Writing that way makes about as much sense as this proposed rule amendment does. If anything, we shouldn't force family-given name order if the artist/vocalist/whatever commonly uses first-second name order. Instead, if you want to change something, make it so artists written in the family-given order have a comma, since you know, you're not using Japanese anymore.

Examples:
Shimotsuki, Haruka
Hanazawa, Kana
Sakakibara, Yui

If it wasn't obvious, anything in red is reversed, satirically.

Lach wrote:

Let me tell you a story about a girl named 森永真由美. 森永真由美 is a vocalist who has worked on songs for Konami's beatmania IIDX series (and other) games. Do you know how they write 森永真由美?

It's not 森永真由美.

It's also not Morinaga, Mayumi.

It's Mayumi Morinaga, despite the fact that it is obviously reversed name order. Every song credited to her has her name this way. Even on official Konami websites, and in game, it says Mayumi Morinaga. I assume the reasoning for this is because they're not even using Japanese characters. Most of the time when Japanese speakers use the Roman alphabet, they also use punctuation and follow the same sentence structure that the language itself does. Else it would .siht ekil kool gnikcuf

As an English speaker, you wouldn't go and write Japanese backwards, would you? そう

Writing that way makes about as much sense as this proposed rule amendment does. If anything, we shouldn't force family-given name order if the artist/vocalist/whatever commonly uses first-second name order. Instead, if you want to change something, make it so artists written in the family-given order have a comma, since you know, you're not using Japanese anymore.

Examples:
Shimotsuki, Haruka
Hanazawa, Kana
Sakakibara, Yui

If it wasn't obvious, anything in red is reversed, satirically.

Oh, I forgot this. You're right.

Chinese, Japanese and Koreans do not use Western name order like John Smith, it's completely opposite.

I am a pretty big fan of Morinaga and her works. My very first beatmap I ever made was Don't Be Afraid actually | Like you mentioned, she never uses her Kanji in anything she does, while Shimomura Yoko does. This honestly means we should be treating her as "Mayumi Morinaga" in the artist field, and never use her Kanji. (Keep it in the Tags)

This really doesn't change much though. It's just a harsher case of Shimomura Yoko. If the community wants to have a list of artists that Commonly uses Given Family order then I already mentioned it back a few posts. We can do this, but what makes them so special that we should use continue to use their Given Family name order? The main point of this is to keep consistency in general, and with how music is spreading overseas, lots of artists we already go by Family Given, will have to eventually be changed to Given Family because it shows up as a logo on their site, and because of how music is expanding outside of their home location. I'm all about fairness though, and I believe everything should be treated equally. Which is why I don't consider Shimomura Yoko or Morinaga Mayumi an exception. A romanization of the artist field is more important than some "preferred romanization" in my eyes, as they're really two different things. I think I already explained this as well in my previous posts. However, as I mentioned before, Morinaga obviously never uses her Kanji so it keeps her seperated. Mayumi Morinaga = Coldrain = ONE OK ROCK in terms of naming.

I don't want to see https://osu.ppy.sh/s/174309 in a beatmap again just because a scan shows it as so. Other famous artists we've already been using Family Given will eventually have to change because of "preferred romanization." This is the whole goal for me with this request. To help maintain consistency. In the future, almost every Japanese artist will have a romanization that will go in "Given Family" due to logos, common format when romanizing, or just wanting to look cool like KSHR suggested on the first post. I'm proposing this before we get too strict with "preferred romanization" that any mention, even on english credits to a game will cause the artist to swap Family and Given around.

What is up with making something like writing a name completely reversed? This is completely different, and it doesn't really require a brain to figure out why. No one in their right mind would write "美由真永森" which is exactly what you just did. Reversing the order of a Family Given name means going Given Family which goes against how their native language calls them, not ylimaF neviG which doesn't even make sense. Can you give me a reason why you think this should be comparable to my rule suggestion? I sure can't think of anything.

Anyways, if the community wants to agree with using commas after their last name, then we can swap to it. I'm pretty sure the majority of the community doesn't want the name layout to be using commas though, though I could be wrong.


You guys can keep naming artists if you like, but I think Morinaga is probably the most extreme we will ever get

Commonly Used Artists for Given / Family
Yoko Shimomura
Mayumi Morinaga

Feel free to add to this list.

I think you missed the point entirely with the reversal thing.

@Lach: "Writing that way makes about as much sense as this proposed rule amendment does."
Basically when you wrote this, you tried to apply it to my written rule request with a structure no one in the world would use. It has no valid point. The rule I'm proposing has a valid structure, and reasons to back it up for the many many times I explained it before. Just by trying to compare them like you did there invalidates everything you wrote. If you didn't try to compare it to what I have proposed, then it would have been just facts that no one would disagree with.

3:18 am. I shouldn't be trying to overthink things like this.

Anyways, *Lach*. Back on topic. Do you have a better way we can propose to help maintain consistency in the artist field? Like I mentioned, with how big music is becoming outside of native countries. We are going to have big inconsistencies and arguments in the future that could be avoided in this rule today. If enforcing something isn't good, how can we make it fair so that certain artists don't get special treatment?

I propose we leave it as it is, because it's fine. If an artist primarily uses western name order, but happens to be japanese/chinese/anything, I say we use that. I don't understand what this whole consistency deal is. If you change something now, it becomes inconsistent with things that came before it. You're free to arrange your music library however you like. This isn't your library.

My name isn't Lust, either.

3:18 am hitting me. Sorry, I meant Lach, not Lust. I'm mutual friends with Lust so I'm used to typing his name out. My bad XD

No this isn't my library, it's osu!'s library, and we should be trying to make it as neat and tidy as possible. Having a set rule of how we arrange this will make it easier to navigate through.

The whole consistency deal is basically what I explained before. Artist's are constantly changing, and so is music as it is expanding. Despite being Aoi Eir for ages to us, preffered romanization has priority and because of one CD, we would by that rule, have to change it over to Eir Aoi. This will continue to happen with artists in the future, and make our Library a huge mess.

I'll probably make this my last response for the night so I can reply tomorrow without being tired. lol

* Realised that I was being ignored. :/ *

Well ngbeslhang, your post would kind of be better in this thread: t/142383

This thread is about name order Family / Given, or Given / Family. Basically you're just saying how you would like your name to be romanized through translation, not order, which would be on the thread listed above.

Thanks for the input though. :3

Lanturn wrote:

Well ngbeslhang, your post would kind of be better in this thread: t/142383

This thread is about name order Family / Given, or Given / Family. Basically you're just saying how you would like your name to be romanized through translation, not order, which would be on the thread listed above.

Thanks for the input though. :3

I see then.
I apologise for misreading the post. :/

Preferred romanization is always inconstant, it's not so uncommon that only one of their products uses given family order but the others say otherwise, and vice versa. I'm kinda biased to given family order but I greatly agree to conclude this topic.

Just in case you haven't read yet; p/2141074

SURNAME Firstname.

I can't think of any reason to support Surname Firstname over SURNAME Firstname.

Thanks a ton for the link Melophobia. I actually never found that thread, and pretty helpful. Honestly, lots of the reasonings I've brought up were already included in the thread.

Another thing I wish to bring up is how we're adjusting to using Modified Hepburn, which is in turn causing the preferred romanization to follow a different system than the one we are trying to use for many artists. This is mainly why I don't like going off labels, websites, and other sources. I would rather prefer a simple romanization of their artist field when it comes to their name using Modified Hepburn, the system we plan on following.

As for naming order, after reading through the thread, it really goes both ways. A set in stone rule would definitely make concluding what the artist field should be easier. This means some win, some lose.

In the end, I still support having a solid rule that applies to all artists. This applies Family/Given or Given/Family usage, Using modified hepburn or going by a label on the site, and how "Preferred Romanization" is to be used.

I think this is going to grave, but anyway, we should revive it. For a case the artist uses "surname firstname" on one CD, but "firstname surname" on second CD. In this case we'd need to ignore any preferences and use "surname firstname". If this rule fades out, at least this should be a part of that to avoid confusion, what do you think?

The discussion here seems to have died. If you wish to continue moving this forward, please contact me and I will move it once again.