This is an attempt to bring some accuracy and consistency to names of non-western actors and actress to the DVDP community. The problems inherent with converting non-western names to western centric program such as DVDP are that the alphabets and conventions are vastly different. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean names are written using unique Asian characters and cannot easily be input into current version of the program due to absence of unicode support. Even if the program was fully unicode compliant, you would not neccessarily want to solely input Asian names in their native characters, because they would be unreadable to any one who is unfamiliar with the language.

Problems with Asian names are two fold.  I will start with Korean names since I am a native Korean speaker and most familiar with the issues surrounding these names.

1. Korean names must be romanized in order to be represented using conventional alphabet characters. Korean language is written using phonetic representation of sounds similar to the English language. Each character made up of combination of Korean alphabet (called Hangeul) represents a single syllable.  In July of 2000, government of Korea issued a revised romanization system for Korean. This is now the system used to romanize all signs, textbooks, and official names (such as used in passports) where English alphabet is used to represent Korean characters. Only exception to this policy is in representation of surnames since romanization of much of surnames are deeply imbedded in culture.  More information on the revised standard is found in link below.

http://www.korea.net/korea/kor_loca.asp?code=A020303

2. 99% of Korean names are usually made up of 3 syllables. They are composed of usually 1 syllable of surname followed by 2 syllables of given name. There are few 2 syllable surnames and 1 syllable given names giving rise to few 4 syllable and 2 syllable names, but this makes up only 1% of total names.

Names are written surname first followed by given name. So for a actor named Choi Min-shik, he would write his name

???

where Choi (?) is the surname and Min-shik (??) is the given name.  Because prior to revised romanization system, people were more or less free to romanize their name at a whim, he is sometimes credited as

Choi, Min-sik
Choi, Min Sik
Choi, Min-shik
Choi, Min Shik
Choi, Minsik
Min Sik Choi
Min-shik Choi
etc...

With the release of DVDP 3.0 and the new cast system, we can achieve some semblence of consistency and accuracy for Asian names. Using "as credited" option, we can accurate copy credited name into the database when it is written in English. When it is credited only in Korean, we can enter the name into the database using a common romanization system for names accurately parsing surname and given name.

I would like to propose the following for standardizing Korean names into DVDP database for main cast and crew.

1. All Korean actors and actress will use standard revised romanization system for their given names. Two syllable names will be separated by a hyphen(-) with the first letter of the second syllable not capitalized.

2. All Korean actors and actress will use standard accepted romanization for their surnames
    Examples can be found in http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Korean_surnames

3. All Korean actors and actress will have their name parsed into surname - Last name and given name - First name. Accuracy of parsing will rely on native experts, but may be challenged with proof of error.

4. When native Korean actors and actress also have a western name or a nick name they would be placed into the middle name field (nickname in "")

5. All names will be input into the cast list using above rules unless there is an English version of their name on the credit screen, in which case, credited name would be inputed into the database using the "as credited option" and properly linked to the official name in the main database

6. All roles should be translated unless they are proper names (?? should be preacher, not mok-sa)

7. Many actors and actress use pseudonyms. When they sound like conventional names, standard parsing of names into surname and given name should be applied as above.

8. Some actors and actress use pseudonyms that utilize what sounds like given name only. In this case, the name should be parsed into First name field with no Last name.

9. Although these rules attempt to account for most scenarios, there are going to be some ambiguous names from time to time.  Common sense and intent of these rules should be used when names are ambiguous.

Some examples follow (They are in Last Name, First Name format, but there is an option in the program to display names in First Name, Last Name format):

??? would be Lee, Yeong-ae
??? would be Choi, Min-sik
??? would be Lee, Byeong-heon
??? would be Sohn, Ye-jin
??? would be Moon, So-ri

I welcome your input. I know this effects very few of you, but this is an important issue to some of us who collect these movies. Sorry about the ??? above, but the message board appears to be not compatible with Korean characters (but hopefully you get the idea).

Thank you for reading,

I agree with most of what you wrote, but the only disagreement I have is in regards to this part:

"4. When native Korean actors and actress also have a western name or a nick name they would be placed into the middle name field (nickname in "")"

Unlike Hong Kong, where many actors are as widely known by their western names as they are their Chinese names, this isn't really the case in Korea.  In fact, I can't really think of any off-hand.

Very good to point this issue xradman.

These Asian cast and crew member names are causing confusion to me also.
I don't know what is surname and and what is given name.

Somebody is contributing profiles in other method and somebody else in different method. This goes on and on and on ...

It would be good thing to get guide how these Asian names should be added.

Btw? What method IMDb is using for Asian names?

Quoting JaLe:

Quote:
Very good to point this issue xradman.

These Asian cast and crew member names are causing confusion to me also.
I don't know what is surname and and what is given name.

Somebody is contributing profiles in other method and somebody else in different method. This goes on and on and on ...

It would be good thing to get guide how these Asian names should be added.

Btw? What method IMDb is using for Asian names?

If you think IMDb is messed up for western names, it is completely useless for Asian names. There are internet resource for many Asian actors and actress, but vast majority of them require that you speak and are able to read the original language in order to make use  of the data.

As far as being able to determine what is surname and given name, any native speaker will be able to tell you 99% of the time which is which. There are few ambiguous names (much like Robert James) where you may not be certain which is a surname and which is a given name, but these are fortunately rare.

I agree to your naming guide (I suggest we refer to this as guide as long as Ken hasn't made any comment on this).

How do you propose on bilingual credits, if there are differences anyways...

PS
You can post images of the symbols the board doesn't support.

Quoting Peter von Frosta:

Quote:
I agree to your naming guide (I suggest we refer to this as guide as long as Ken hasn't made any comment on this).

How do you propose on bilingual credits, if there are differences anyways...

PS
You can post images of the symbols the board doesn't support.

If there are bilingual credits, we should use the provided romanized credits, and if different from the romanized name in master name database, use "as credited" option.

Quoting xradman:

Quote:
As for film titles, I am a proponent of using the international title (whenever available) as the main title for all films for DVDs from all regions. If the original title is different from the international title, that can be entered into the original title field.

NO, we should add the correct title. We shouldnt add any alternative titles, especially not as the main title. The rules arent that clear on the cast/crew, but they are very clear on titles.

Quoting whispering:

Quote:
Quoting xradman:

Quote:
As for film titles, I am a proponent of using the international title (whenever available) as the main title for all films for DVDs from all regions. If the original title is different from the international title, that can be entered into the original title field.

NO, we should add the correct title. We shouldnt add any alternative titles, especially not as the main title. The rules arent that clear on the cast/crew, but they are very clear on titles.

No they aren't. Even if you take the title from credits it's sometime bilingual.