This. I'd also add "How would you like to be called" as sometimes people go by their second given name, not the first given name. For example, you might have a common first name like Muhammad or Ketut.
Yes. Unless you have a really good reason to split the name (legal documents), you should think really hard about why you're attempting to get a full name in the first place, instead of "a nickname for this account". And if you really do want the name, why can't you use whatever the user puts in a single field "name" instead.
I would not do this. For reasons of respect, you may need to address a person by either their first or last name (with a title).
Addressing a person by their full name can come across as rude (I personally find it rude too, e.g. "Hey John R. Brown, this is your order"), so it's useful to split up "given name" and "family name" into 2 fields so that you don't have to depend on name ordering which varies by culture.
If they only have one name, like many people in Myanmar, then it's just the given name. If they don't have family names (some cultures use patronymics) then it's just a long given name. If they have double-barreled last names like Hispanic names, then it's just a long family name.
Most people in the world have filled out forms on U.S. sites. They'll know what to do.
Full names, at least in the USA, are sometimes used by parents to address their children when they are in trouble. Rude might not be the right word but potentially at least jarring. I have never experienced it or seen someone react that way from text but I have with verbal addresses.
edit some conversations about the topic for reference since it is harder to google for than I initially thought it would be.
> Stuffy, Maybe, but rude? Calling people by their first name is rude. Calling people by forms of address which don’t exist is rude.
For me and my people, it's perceived as rude (it sounds infantilizing). Just because you don't perceive it that way doesn't mean it is not.
> Calling people by their first name is rude
Yes, it can be. That's why it's useful to have their last names disambiguated so a proper title can be appended. When you have the full name in a single string, you can't do that -- you don't have enough information to decompose the name into its parts. When you have both given name and family names, you don't have to guess which is which.
There are forms of address that sound rude if appended to full names.
(of course it can be argued that even with 2 fields one might get it wrong, so I fully agree that adding a field indicating how one prefers to be addressed is the best solution of all)
> For me and my people, it's perceived as rude (it sounds infantilizing). Just because you don't perceive it that way doesn't mean it is not.
So what you’re actually saying now is that any inferred form of address may come across as rude, which means you original suggestion is plain incorrect: splitting given name and family name does not allow generating a genetically never rude form of address, because you can’t know whether the user’s culture favours given names, family names, full names, or even none of the above.
And that’s before getting into honorifics and titles.
> So what you’re actually saying now is that any inferred form of address may come across as rude, which means you original suggestion is plain incorrect: splitting given name and family name does not allow generating a genetically never rude form of address, because you can’t know whether the user’s culture favours given names, family names, full names, or even none of the above.
> Just add a field for the desired form of address, or a nickname.
For westerners you might want sunny, good-news messages to say "Hi John" but for an apology for a problem (like a delay or cancellation) you might want to use the more respectful "Dear Mr Doe"
On the other hand, this discussion has plenty of examples of why separate 'first name' and 'last name' fields don't work in all cultures. And I think we can all agree that asking people for a name and two desired forms of address ready to e-mail them in two different tones would be a very unusual sign up process.
I'm not sure there's any universal, fully respectful way of doing this across cultures.
> Most people in the world have filled out forms on U.S. sites. They'll know what to do.
I'm just French (where we often use "FAMILY Given" in a formal setting, but "Given Family" is common otherwise) and I still need a moment to think every time I see "first name" "last name" fields instead of "family name" "given name", after decades of being online.
My parents just fill these forms in random order, basically.
The other problem is:
> For reasons of respect, you may need to address a person by either their first or last name (with a title).
This often doesn't translate well between cultures. American websites will often use the given name in any setting and this is weird. If they want to be friendly-informal they should address me with "Hello Given Family, this is your order".
