Bong Joon-ho or Joon ho Bong ... this is the 2-penny question

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Hi there


The name of the director Bong Joon-ho (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0094435) changes very regularly since mid-August. It oscillates between Bong Joon-ho, Joon-ho Bong and Bong Joon Ho. I am not specially an expert from South Korea, but according to Wikipedia (either French or English), the name would be: "Bong Joon-ho"

One of two things:
1) two or three guys play ping-pong via the IMDb website, with a weird atmosphere of dialogue of the deaf
2) there is a bug within the IMDb's IT processes


How can one change the name of a director so easily?
If I may, it clearly emphasizes a lack of checks.



Best regards
Stéphane
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FrenchEddieFelson

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Posted 9 months ago

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9 months ago
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Bulma PunkRocker

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Hello FrenchEddieFelson

Regarding how the name should be listed in IMDb, Here is a link to the guidelines for Asian names:
https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/names-biographical-data/names/GSA3M6SFHRAERXZ3?ref_=helpm...

Asian Names

Chinese and some other Asian nations put the family name first.

  • Example: Chow Yun-Fat. Chow is the family name (like "Smith") and Yun-Fat is the given name (like "John"). Therefore, according to the rules above, the name is stored in IMDb as Chow, Yun-Fat and displayed in film credits as Yun-Fat Chow..
  • NOTE: A case like the above is easy to determine because there's a dash in the name, which typically identifies the first name.
Japanese/Korean Names

For Japanese names and titles, we prefer "Revised Hepburn" romanization (Hepburn, but with syllabic "n" never converted to "m"). Circumflexes for long vowels are accepted since macrons are not available. For Korean names and titles, we prefer the transliteration outlined here.

  • Names that are already in use in English should be used as they are presented in English dictionaries and not transliterated. Thus, Park and Samsung instead of the precisely transliterated Bark and Samseong.
  • This rule should be applied mainly to composers, writers, companies and politicians who are well known. Other names should be presented according to the rules. In case these names are taken from Western materials with a different transliteration, these names should be presented as an alternate name: "(as Park)" or "(as Lee)".


If director Bong Joon-ho has a well known official name in USA and Europe (which I don't know, I'm simply a contributor of mainly Japanese and Chilean titles), that's the name it should be used in IMDb. Otherwise, as stated above, his name should be converted in western order, just like we do with Japanese names, so it appears as given name first, family name list.
To do so it must be entered as "Bong, Joon-ho" and it will displayed as "Joon-ho Bong". I hope it helps.

Cheers.





9 months ago
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FrenchEddieFelson

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Hi there




First thing first

Thank you Bulma PunkRocker for these explanations on specific rules relating to a part of Asia. I was insufficiently aware of that. So many thanks!




Nevertheless,

A technical solution should be found to avoid these manifold changes in the wording of the names such as Bong Joon-ho which has been changed at least 7 or 8 times since last August. It's ridiculous.



So:

@IMDb, two suggestions
1) Could you add an option to display a name according to local habits?
2) Could you prevent future changes for Bong Joon-ho, whatever the spelling?



Best regards,
Stéphane
9 months ago
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Peter, Champion

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Since Stéphane posted this, the name order has changed back and forth at least once.

It is currently:
Joon Ho, Bong

But I think it's clear that this contradicts IMDb's own guidelines. Maybe the guidelines should be changed?
2020-01-03T16:43:15+00:00
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vinc17

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Please revert to "Bong, Joon-ho", at least for consistency with all the other Korean names (and more generally, Asian names) and to follow IMDb's own guidelines, otherwise this brings confusion. Those who use the internal database data would also get something wrong with the current data by thinking that "Joon Ho" is the surname and "Bong" the first name.

These are not the guidelines that should be changed primarily, but the way the IMDb records and handles names. For instance, knowing what is the surname is important for sorting, possibly also for the search engine (perhaps not now, but in the future?). Note also that when Asian names are written surname first, the surname is often written in capital letters to avoid confusion.

What should be done in the future is to have a surname field, a first name field, and a parameter saying which should come first when displayed (the first name, the surname, or depending on the country of the viewer). Special names not in this form (even based on first name + surname, like Costa-Gavras), should just use the surname field.

Regards,
Vincent.
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