[Bug localedata/14641] Deprecate name_fmt

["bugdal at aerifal dot cx" <sourceware-bugzilla at sourceware dot org>]

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=14641

--- Comment #20 from Rich Felker <bugdal at aerifal dot cx> ---
On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 05:48:35AM +0000, keld at keldix dot com wrote:
> The LC_NAME (and LC_ADDTESS) category addresses a real need for providing
> culturally acceptable software. Really many cultures use the Family name,
> first name convention, which is offending to me for my name. The world is
> rather
> split in two halves on the order of given name and family name.

That's the naive and mistaken view that resulted in the creation of
LC_NAME/name_fmt to begin with. In reality there are a lot more
conventions than just these two, but the prevalence of information
systems that require names to be stored as a first/given name and a
last/family name seems to have made their existence much less visible.
Here are some other cultural conventions:

- Only one name. Attempting to force these into a given/family pattern
  is offensive and results in things like being assigned a "first
  name" of "FNU" and having your given name treated as a family name.

- Multiple names, but all given. Attempting to force these into a
  given/family pattern is almost always offensive because it will
  result in things like "Mr./Ms. Second-name", presenting a name
  backwards as "Second-name First-name", etc.

- Multiple family names. I don't even know how this is typically
  handled.

Wikipedia has some detailed coverage of the issues:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_name
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mononymous_person

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