Talk:List of people by name: Ta

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Help - what will I hurt if I put Ta Mok (no, I don't think his name is "Mok, Ta") here? --Alvestrand 12:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

_ _ Thank you for taking the trouble to ask; you're a good colleague!

_ _ Most names this short, and some longer ones, are special cases until the first one on its page comes along and that page gets created. I haven't figured out a practical solution to that, nor has anyone to my knowledge suggested one. It's even easier to fix than to explain, and i think the solution will make some sense to you once it is in place. Check out List of people by name: Ta in an hour, and thanks again.

_ _ BTW, if you are as clear as you sound about his name, what do you thing abt the difference of Lon Nol calling its subject "Nol" (or for that matter "Lon"), while Pol Pot, Son Sen, and Ta Mok never appear to shorten subsequent references to a surname. Are the Khmer Rouge bios just neglected, or is there a naming convention involved, that may need more prominent mention in them?
--Jerzy•t 01:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I know that there are mulitple traditions in east Asia. I'm not sure which one Cambodia follows - but Nodorom Sihanouk's sons were all named "Nodorom <something>" - bwhen they are referred to by one name, it's usually "Sihanouk" and "Ranarridh", but that's a royal family; may be special. But the point may be moot in this case; what I got from the article was that "Ta Mok" was his nickname, not a family name. I suspect that Western media are inconsistent on how they quote the names - just as in Latin America, where the formal name of a person is often 3 or 4 components, with the "distinguished" component being the next-to-last; see Hugo Chavez for an example (the editors have, correctly I think, put him into the list of living people as "Chavez Frias, Hugo"); you'll sometimes have to ask someone from the culture how to (or IF you can) use an abbreviated version of the name. One thing I liked about the "list of names" idea was that in case of doubt, it was easy to put a name in multiple times.... --Alvestrand 03:14, 11 February 2006 (UTC)