Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!jack
From: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Standardizing Email?
Message-ID: <1584@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 29 Aug 88 09:29:25 GMT
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Reply-To: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
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barmar@kulla.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin) wrote:

>>>For example, one of the formats is simply the recipient's personal
>>>name (structured into Surname, Given name, Initials, Generational
>>>qualifier)...

>>I hope that structuring is just one of many possibilities for the
>>structure of a personal name field---otherwise it's not exactly
>>standard! 

>I think that's the only format specified by the standard.  What else
>do you need?  I realize that there's no title (Doctor, Ph.D., etc),
>but that isn't really needed to identify a person, it's an honorific
>designation.

You need more for Arabic names (I don't speak Arabic, I got this from an
article in the mid-70's about Arabic DP requirements). There is no such
thing as a surname in traditional Arab societies; a name is structured
as <personal name> <father's name> <father's father's name> ... and so
on, the length of the quoted ancestry getting longer as the occasion gets
more formal. So the only way the X.400 structure could be made to fit is
by putting "Adam" in everybody's surname field and a list of 150-odd names
as the "generational qualifier". (Arabs can often recite a genealogy going
back that far).

I believe this structure is still in widespread use.

Icelanders might not be happy to see their patronymics shoehorned into
this model either, but I guess they're used to it.

Any other unusual naming systems out there?

-- 
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Mail: Jack Campin, Computing Science Dept., Glasgow Univ., 17 Lilybank Gardens,
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