Name Stylization

Contributing
1

After I read this, I am somewhat… surprised?

While it makes sense not to split up a Korean surname such as Namkoong, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to split up Korean names into three parts. This just became somewhat a thing on Viki. Elsewhere it’s more common to either write them together or use the mentioned - (which I only saw in presubbed movies here before though).
But while Korean might be debatable, I don’t think the same about Chinese:

陈哲远 is Chen Zhe Yuan, not Zhe Yuan Chen or Chen Zheyuan.

Have you ever read Xi Jin Ping anywhere? :woman_shrugging: I didn’t. It makes absolutely no sense to do this, it’s not common, it’s just randomly appearing in a couple of presubs… and on MDL. Still, it’s not common anywhere in the press, at most you find a version with - again.

Example: 西島 秀俊 is Hidetoshi Nishijima, not Nishijima Hidetoshi.

It was indeed common to treat Japanese names differently from Korean or Chinese names. Still, nowadays, this has been opposed to for quite a few years internationally.

This isn’t necessarily followed internationally by now, and it’s up for discussion. However, considering that the viewers of Viki are actually hearing the name in its original name order (surname - given name) it’s even more confusing not to adopt those changes in my opinion. In fact, presubbed shows have been providing different solutions to this over the last few years. At least no one considered calling the poor guy Nishijima Hide Toshi in accordance with the kanji comparable to Korean or Chinese… :woman_shrugging: :thinking:

In general, names in subtitles should appear exactly as they do in the synopsis so everything is kept consistent.

The synopsis often disregards actual things, such as the Revised Romanization in Korean which is from 2000. :roll_eyes:

What do you think about this?

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2

The synopsis sometimes has a completely different plot compared to the final series, which has gone through several rounds of censorships. Then why should it matter what name says in there?

3

That’s another issue, contrary to ancient times team members can no longer influence it either. However, there are inconsistencies in both synopsis and actual presubs. Not to forget that the guide tells us to “romanize names using the Korean government Hangul romanization guide, unless specified otherwise.” However, it either encourages hyphens or having one word as well.

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4

The guidelines from the viki staff remind me of 2017, when they wrote to me as channel manager for the kdrama Shopping King Louis and insisted we spell the name Louie. Should it be LOUIS or LOUIE? The staff totally ignored the embroidered underwear in the videos spelling “LOUIS” and the name of 18 kings of France. Here we are 7 years later and viki staff is once again flexing authority. The instruction to follow the name spelling in the synopsis is ridiculous. As Bozoli said, the synopsis often is very different from the actual plot. The name spellings often have not conformed to the Revised Romantization Rules of the South Korea. How is someone not very familiar with Hangul and the Revised Romanization Rules know when the synopsis is correctly applying the rules and when not?
Immediately after stating in the guidelines " On occasion, agencies and production companies may request that Viki make exceptions to these rules.

  • Examples:
    • 김수현 is Kim Soo Hyun, not Kim Soo-hyun or Soo-hyun Kim.
    • 남궁민 is Namkoong Min, not Nam-koong Min or Nam Koong Min."

But it appears actor Kim Soo-hyun’s agency Romanizes his name Kim Soo-Hyun, and the viki staff also don’t inform the uninformed that 남궁 (Namgung per the RRR, Namkoong per the actor’s agency) is one of a handful of Korean surnames which have two syllables so that the examples don’t instruct correctly.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

5 Likes
5

I’m wondering about names in Chinese. In particular, when they call someone whose given name is i. e. Chen, “Chenchen”. I usually see it written like this in the subtitles, while, from what I understand, it should be “Chen Chen”. Am I missing something?

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6

It was never common in the last years to separate Chinese names into various syllables. There were some dramas who did it, but it was the minority in fact.

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7

Hi,

I know this is a bit late, but I thought I’d respond.

Ignoring the current (incorrect) Viki name stylization guidelines. For Chinese names, we typically only separate the name if it is a nickname in the form of a repeated character.

Here is a breakdown of Chinese names:

2 character names:
[1 character last name] [1 character first name]
Ex. 李蓉 Li Rong
**In the drama, she is sometimes affectionately called 蓉蓉 Rong Rong, which is a nickname so a space is added.

3 character names:
[1 character last name] [2 character first name]

Ex. 1: 裴文宣 Pei Wenxuan

Ex. 2: 黎苏苏 Li Susu
**Here you can see there is the repeated character, however, since it is her given name we keep the characters together when she is referred to as just 苏苏 Susu.

[2 character last name] [1 character first name]
Ex. 司徒末 Situ Mo

4 character names:
[2 character last name] [2 character first name]
Ex. 东方清仓 Dongfang Qingcang

Others (typically non Han Chinese names)
Ex. 迪丽热巴·迪力木拉提 Dilraba Dilmurat

With these examples, we can also see the benefits of the official Chinese name stylization—not only does it differentiate between last name and first name, it also differentiates between the given name and nickname of characters. Beyond not being correct, the current Viki name stylization guidelines can cause a lot of confusion, especially with two character last names.

Hope that helps!

5 Likes
8

Thank you so much for this reaction. It’s never too late for a good explanation of something! I was quite surprised when I read Viki’s guidelines about the names. The way you explain this seems not only clear but also easy to read and to remember. I hope Viki won’t go after us if we just keep on writing the names the way you said. :slight_smile: