Wikidata:Property proposal/Vietnamese middle name

Vietnamese middle name

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Person

Done: Vietnamese middle name (P8500) (Talk and documentation)

Description	middle name of a Vietnamese person; use P735 qualified by P1545 for the middle name of a partially westernized name
Represents	middle name (Q245025)
Data type	Item
Domain	human (Q5)
Allowed values	middle name (Q245025), given name (Q202444)
Example 1	Trần Xuân Soạn (Q10829653) → Xuân (Q97164794)
Example 2	Nguyen Thi Minh Khai (Q7022971) → Thị (Q2654762)
Example 3	Nguyễn Quang Hải (Q24689101) → Quang (Q112115877)
Planned use	Items about people with Vietnamese names, including Minh Nguyễn (Q69873076)
See also	Scandinavian middle family name (P6978) (another culture-specific middle name property)

Motivation

As I understand it, given name (P735) generally includes the middle name, distinguishing between first and middle names by qualifying both given names with series ordinal (P1545). This is suitable for bibliographic sorting of many Western names, but not for Vietnamese names. In Vietnamese culture, the middle name is a given name, but the full name is typically displayed in family–middle–given order but sorted in given–family–middle order. In the example below, the series ordinal (P1545) qualifier would differ depending on whether it reflects the order used for display or bibliographic sorting:

Trần Hưng Đạo (Q511375)
Purpose
Display	Trần	Hưng	Đạo
Sorting	Đạo	Trần	Hưng

Making matters worse, overseas Vietnamese reverse the order to match Western practice: given–middle–family:

Minh Nguyễn (Q69873076)
Language	Purpose
English	Display	Minh	Xuân	Nguyễn
English	Sorting	Nguyễn	Minh	Xuân
Vietnamese	Display	Nguyễn	Xuân	Minh
Vietnamese	Sorting	Minh	Nguyễn	Xuân

In Vietnamese, a table of people's names might display family names in one column and middle–given in another. But otherwise, a person is only ever referred to by the full family–middle–given or by just the given name without the middle name. These nuances would only be discoverable to data consumers through either the property being proposed here. The workaround I'm currently using is to set the middle name as a given name while qualifying it with subject has role (P2868) middle name (Q245025), but that violates a constraint and doesn't allow data consumers to treat it any differently than a Western middle name.

– Minh Nguyễn ^💬 07:53, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Support This seems distinct enough that it deserves its own property. Though, I wonder if there are any other languages or cultures that do the same thing? ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:30, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@ArthurPSmith: Scandinavian middle family name (P6978) comes to mind as another culture-specific middle name property, but that culture doesn't have the complexity of reordering names in different contexts. Quite a few cultures use Eastern name order; however, most of them seem to treat middle names differently than in Vietnamese. For example, in Chinese, even if a middle name is considered distinct from the given name, family–middle–given order stays the same for sorting and becomes middle–given–family in Western contexts. For now, I'm only confident about the situation for Vietnamese names, but if we find out about another culture that coincidentally treats middle names the same way, we can generalize the property's name at that point. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 22:42, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support This allows Vietnamese names can be easily recognized and avoid any misunderstanding. Alphama (talk) 16:58, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support I agree. P.T.Đ (talk) 13:50, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support This should be added to allow flexibilities in dealing with Vietnamese names. @Mxn: Could you cite some standardization documents / official documents on some claims over ordering / sorting conventions for Vietnamese names :D Thanks Tttrung (talk) 10:36, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Tttrung: The Chicago Manual of Style addresses sorting of Vietnamese names of Vietnamese people in English. [1] Apparently the matter is far from settled [2], but that's all the more reason to use a separate property rather than treat middle names as first or second given names. I haven't seen anything authoritative about sorting Vietnamese names of Vietnamese people in Vietnamese, but [3] is consistent with what I've observed anecdotally. Names of Vietnamese Americans in English are treated differently, but as that VSG thread indicates, it can depend on the name's history. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 01:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks! Tttrung (talk) 01:29, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Mxn, Alphama, P.T.Đ, Tttrung:

Done Vietnamese middle name (P8500) Pamputt (talk) 20:00, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank, it is great! <3 Alphama (talk) 04:27, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]