It is important that we use enter names in a consistant manner so that searchers will know how to find the entries they are looking for.
Western names: Should appear as the usually do, given name followed by family name, both with their first letter capitalized.
Japanese organizations: Usually have official romanizations. If this is the case, the official romanization should be used. If no official romanization exists then it should be romanized using the modified Hepburn as outlined below.
Japanese people: Sometimes have official romanizations (including capitalization and name order). If this is the case then the official one should be used, (for instance, "Yoshitoshi ABe"). If no official romanization exists then the name should be entered family name (all caps) followed by given name (first letter caps), (for instance, "HAYASHIBARA Megumi"). If you don't know which name is the family name and which is the given then each name should be first letter caps and you should suffix it with an "*" (for instance "Mami Koyama*").
Romanization
[edit] Romanization is done here using using a 7bit version of modified ↗Hepburn romanization. While Unicode gives us the ability to enter macrons (eg Tenchi Muyō), many Unicode aware browsers still can't display them. Additionally, they're not easy to type on any keyboard. Some use the circumflex (eg Tenchi Muyô) which is available on many European keyboard layouts and a part of the Kunrei-shiki romanization scheme. This is still difficult to type for those of using English keyboards. Also, in the fan community (in at least the US) the 7bit form has traditionally been used (this no doubt dates back to Usenet in the late '80s).There is, in fact, only one difference from Modified Hepburn: Kana are expressed with their roman equivalents even when they do not represent a new sylable. That is:
- おお is written as oo and おう is written as ou, etc.
See Also:
- Wikipedia's ↗romanization of Japanese article.
