Name changes (Ringo Lam, Johnnie To, Ronny Yu)

[Chen Hung Lieh]

Changed a few main names:

Ronny Yu Yan-Tai -> Ronny Yu
Johnnie To Kei-Fung -> Johnnie To
Ringo Lam Ling-Tung -> Ringo Lam
Teresa Tang Lai-Gwan -> Teresa Teng

Changed 1 Alias:
Donald Chow Yun-Fat -> Donald Chow


To be continued (if I'm not stopped)...

[bkasten]

I am not necessarily opposed to these being changed. But what is the reason for changing them?

[Chen Hung Lieh]

Ringo Lam, Johnnie To, Ronny Yu:
I must admit, my subjective dislike of naming both Chinese and Western forename in one breath was a driving force (forenames were always a matter of either/or for me, with exceptions), but the ultimate reason of these changes was the simple fact that they are mostly credited either Chinese only or Western forename only.

Teresa Teng:
She was a very famous Taiwanese singer, so I moved her Cantonese name to the Aliases and splitted it into 1) Teresa Tang and 2) Tang Lai-Gwan. As her movies are almost all Taiwan movies, I checked only the credits of her only HK movie which have not been romanized.

Donald Chow Yun-Fat:
Well, um... this time I didn't rely on facts, it was just a feeling that the one who added it didn't rely on facts either. I'm open to undo this change. As far as I know, Donald was only reported to be his former name and that nobody actually verified that. I'm willing to believe this, but it seemed unlikely to me that he wanted to be called with both forenames at the same time.

[Michael Kistner]

But what is the reason for changing them?

That was my thought too. I find it useful that the English and Chinese names are together. I personally don't find anything questionable about it.

[J.J.Hayden]

I wrote a similar response last night, but being a bone head, I didn't save the draft, then when I clicked submit it took me to the sign in page and my text was lost

Like Bob, I'm not opposed as such, I don't have strong feelings on it either way. But I think it's better having the full (English+Chinese) names. I'll put my reasoning below for you to consider, if they're not things you've considered already.

Firstly, it helps distinguish between people with the same/similar names, a good example is the name Tony Leung and the various people who share that name, obviously this isn't directly equivalent to the people you've listed as there's only one Ringo Lam etc. but only for now, it's possible that there may be another Ringo Lam and the Tony Leung situation would become relevant. In line with this idea, is the consistency of the names, if we do have Tony Leung's with the full names, shouldn't everybody have full names (where available), if just for the sake of consistency?

Secondly on a lesser point, I think it could be useful for those who are only aware of a person's Chinese name or English name exclusively, it makes it more likely for them to become accustomed to both names if they're right there in their face. This can be useful to researching martial arts films, the more people who know both the English and Chinese of actors etc. the less chance of confusion when different sources switch back and forth between the two. I hope this makes sense, it might be a bit ramble-y.

As I said, not strong feeling on it either way, but those were my thoughts.

Cheers

btw: can't say I'd heard Donald Chow Yun-fat before, sounds kinda lame like Collin Chou

[Chen Hung Lieh]

OK, as it seems I'm the only one who feels annoyed by forename-surname-forename names, I will change them all back.

I think it is possible that the long names can help others getting accustomed to them, maybe I neglected the possible advantages behind them a litte. I personally do not feel the need for it, but if others feel different, OK. For me the usual Aliases are fine for that purpose.

I also agree that the forenames can be useful to distinguish between search results, but if I know a forename anyway, I can as well search with it directly which is even more effective. If I don't know the forename, their presence in the results won't help me much either.

It was not my intention to change all those names, one life is not enough for that, but I wanted at least fix the most wellknown ones. A few months ago, of all databases, HKMDB was the only one not listing his most used (non-Chinese) name Ringo Lam (or Johnnie To? One of them). What? Your shitty databases get the name straight and "my great Hkmdb" not? I must get even with you!! But I felt kinda strange when I added it as an Alias only instead of simply correcting his primary name.

It was always my impression that the purpose of taking up a Western forename was to use it instead of the Chinese forename, not to extend it by using both. But I'm not much educated in his field. Maybe there are such and such. I will probably never get used to the long names, but will consider this as my individual problem from now on.

[bkasten]

OK, no need to change back so fast. Let's review this a bit.

This and the other thread are making me consider and reconsider how we use the "English" field. And the more ideas out there the more quickly we can reach some sort of consensus, or I can come up with a better technical solution. In the case of the other thread regarding Korean romanization, I will expand the database capabilities to allow for the use of Aliases and "credited as" in the cast listings.

As I state in the Editor's Guidelines, the original intent with the "English" field was to use the most commonly credited romanized name. So in the case of actors very familiar to all, for example Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, Bruce Lee...do we use those, or do we use Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Bruce Lee Siu-Lung? Going from original intent to extending it, the thought was that it could be as the official H.K. romanized documentation (HKSAR passports I.D. cards) would show the latter (i.e., Andy Lau Tak-Wah). But that's really not often how actors are credited in H.K. film. So, again, it leads us into many grey areas of official romanized name versus commonly known English name (i.e., Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee). I think for Hong Kong people this is more straightforward. In other cases, it is not, and we have to handle on a case by case basis. For the moment, I will leave it as a judgement call. But any changes should be discussed (as we have here).

[STSH]

Always good to discuss this as an issue.
The old-timers know my views, but for those newer ...

I have always been strongly in favour of full names, and for the reasons stated.

Also and for the record, I am dead against listing an English name alone as an alias if it is exactly the same as the main English name portion e.g. why would we list Tony Leung Kar-Fai as alias Tony Leung ? Pointless.

I delete these as I come across them. As I retired from actively editing HKMDB in 2009 (after practically living on the site for the previous decade), this amounts to mere grazing.

Keep up the great work, chaps. It is wonderful to see new and newish editors who take such care and conduct such thorough research putting their considerable talents to filling in the many gaps which still exist.

I was responsible for the great bulk of data entries here in the first half-dozen years, so there are of course many cases of error to be corrected. For each one, I say thanks.