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You even try to apply some culturtal norm to First Name, Middle name and last Name and you have been told before they are merely positional terms, NOT the cultural terms you want apply.

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That is your inference, North. I have given you an out , take it and be happy.

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Quoting northbloke:

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Not told by Invelos we haven't and it was Ken who designed the program. The cast and crew are even sorted by last name which infers cultural rather than positional use.

This is a very good and valid point. I point that out because I just noticed that in all the time I discussed the issue (long time ago; I eventually gave up because people who don't understand the problem and are hardly affected by it kept interfering) I never thought of that.

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There are simple rules to decipher first and last names:
* If a non-Asian first name is listed first, then that goes in the first name field. The rest in the last name field. Ie "Simon/Yam" and "Tony/Leung Ka Fai".

wow, that would truly annoy me if someone decided that my last name was something other than what it was.  "Leung Ka Fai" is NOT his surname...  its only "Leung".  "Ka Fai" being his given name (chinese).  common problem for many Hong Kong actors who are sometimes credited by only the first two parts (Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung), sometimes as first/last/chinese (Tony Leung Ka Fai, Maggie Cheung Man Yuk), and sometimes just by chinese name (Leung Ka Fai)

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Helena Bonham Carter is another example of why something needs to be changed -- ie having one box for the complete name (as commonly credited?) or having specifically labeled boxes for each name/part?  Because going by the type it as you see the words rule, Bonham would end up as the middle name in this case, instead of as part of the last name. 

perhaps if the program could display the name as credited, but with the surname tagged somehow?
ie:
Tony LEUNG Ka Fai  or  Helena Bonham Carter 
or Charles Philip Arthur George  (hmm...  actually no surname there really)
or Cher  (just the one name, no surname here either)

entry could be into one box, parsed into sections by the program (or into multiple boxes) -- all in as credited order, and then you'd tell the program which bits comprised the surname.  (ok, i'm not sure what to do with people without surnames)

This way, the displayed name looks as most people expect, and its still sortable by surname  (and it'd prolly actually sort by surname+full displayed name, so the sort order should be largely as expected in a telephone directory sort of way)

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In my opinion, your number 3 should be switched.  It should be step 1, where we use screen order (which is usually Family/Given), with a checkbox for those who want it Westernized.

All I know is that if the choice is made that we have to go with backwards-way of putting Given Name/Family Name in the list, despite the credits, then have to use the Credited as system to get it right... well, that will be the end of my contributing Asian cast and crew.  Too much stupid work for something that can be handled simply.