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Instead of switching Japanese names to "western order", why not simply use commas? Commas are accepted in the west and help westerners identify family/given names, and it keeps the original eastern ordering.
"Ishida Yoshio" then becomes "Ishida, Yoshio" instead of "Yoshio Ishida"
For me, switching the names around just further confuses, since I already have trouble differencating common first names from common last names from other languages.
We already have some generally accepted naming conventions at SL (see the discussion) for oriental names. Mainly:
Basically, changing Japanese names to use a comma would just introduce even more confusion than there normally is. You do get used to it after awhile, especially when you see references to things like Kobayashi Izumi being the daughter of Kobayashi Koichi which tends to reinforce that family name is first.
I followed your discussion link, but I didn't see any relevent discussion about name ordering. (and I realize I'm coming into this discussion a little late, but I only just got here :))
Right, I agree that one will eventually get used to recogonizing the difference between first and last names, and especially if they are presented in the same context as you do here. But when in separate contexts, and for those of us westerners still unfamilar with this ordering, it is more difficult without additional helps.
I'm also not suggesting changing SL's current conventions, but in those cases where the reordering is warranted that my suggestion be considered because it both keeps the original ordering and westernizes them at the same time. Because otherwise using both orderings seems to me to be even more confusing.
I created this page to educate Westerners about Japanese names and naming of Japanese in English :)
Now, I'm not actually proposing that names get switched to Western order. I'm just mentioning a trend with Anglophones. :)
Thanks for posting this. As a child I had a Japanese pen pal and she always wrote her name with a comma in between. I was eternally confused by this. Now I know that her first name was actually her surname.
The common naming convention in Korea and China is the same as in Japan, family name then given name. Lee Sedol is family Lee, given name Sedol. Gu Li is family name Gu given name Li. westernizing the names creates more problems than it solves. For example on Wikipedia the rule is Western name order for living people and oriental order for historic people. Now when seeing a name in print you have to know whether the person is alive or dead to know the name situation.