Talk:Haruno Sakura

Rename

Naruto fandom usually refers to the character names in the original Japanese order, i.e. Haruno Sakura instead of Sakura Haruno. Since Fanlore doesn't have a policy on this, I think it would be best to keep with fandom's way. I'm proposing that we change the name of this article to Haruno Sakura. -- Kylara 03:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this fandom but if the fandom prefers a different order with regard to the character names, I would go with the fandom preference. For what it's worth, there are twice as many Google results for "Sakura Haruno" as there are for "Haruno Sakura", but the first page results for the the first version look more like official sites and the first page results for the second version appear to be more fannish in nature.--Doro 08:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Could we see some sort of official policy on Japanese name order? Whether fans use Japanese or Western name order depends on personal preference, scanlations, official translations, manga or anime, subs or dubs, etc. Should people worry about a consistent naming policy, or go on a fandom-by-fandom basis? --Anenko 11:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Since it looks like Naruto fandom goes with the Japanese name order, I'll move this page (at least until/unless we get an official policy to the contrary). Meanwhile, I've moved the naming-order issue to Fanlore Talk: Editorial Procedures and Fanlore:Bug Tracking to bring it to the wiki admins' attention. --Arduinna 22:44, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there any sort of overall general preference, or principled reason to choose one or the other? The comm is going to need input here. - Melina 18:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Personally I prefer the Japanese name order, just because it's the original one and using it means to pay respect to another culture. Also it is the name order in the corner of fandom I am part of. But I can imagine that there are other parts of fandom that prefer the Western name order. Susanna 20:07, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

This is not in any way meant to be generalized to other fandoms, but for Naruto and Naruto alone, the series is set in a Japan-like world and all the characters have Japanese names, and as a fan I almost never see people online referring to them in Western order. My personal judgement would be strongly in favor of "Haruno Sakura" over "Sakura Haruno" in this case. Loren Leah 21:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue strongly in either direction; whatever Fanlore decides on, I'm good with. But. It really DOES depend on the fandom and fan. I'll use Japanese name order for fandoms like Eyeshield 21, GetBackers, or Gokusen. I automatically use Western name order when I'm writing Skip Beat! fanfic, because I'm so used to the Viz translation (Mr. Ren Tsuruga, Miss Kyoko Mogami, etc.).

And this is probably self-evident, but just to make sure: we should avoid a blanket statement about ALL manga-based fandoms. Fullmetal Alchemist, for example, takes place in a fantasy/AU Europe (this is a case of Not My Fandom, but I've read the name rants on FFR). Nodame Cantabile has a mixed cast of Japanese and European characters, etc. --Anenko 20:27, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Not all characters from Japanese media have Japanese names, so I'm not necessarily in favor of a single set-in-stone policy to enforce on all Japanese media fandoms. The Naruto series has Japanese character names given in the Japanese style, the story is in a Japan-like setting, and fandom embraces the original character names. It seems best to me to keep the original names here as well. This may not apply to all fandoms though. -- Kylara 00:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

From reading what you guys have said my personal instinct is to keep things on a case-by-case basis for now, rather than trying to enforce a one-size-fits-all policy that might not make sense in some cases. Am I hearing you guys correctly -- do you think that would work for now? We can always reevaluate at a later time. Thanks so much for the input. -Melina 17:14, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I encourage leaving it to case-by-case for now, based on how fandom accepts the character names. So I also encourage Fanlore stating that editors should go in favor of how fandom accepts the name, or to at least discourage editors from changing character names just because places like Wikipedia do. -- Kylara 18:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay. The consensus of the comm seems to be to keep naming on a case-by-case basis for now. If you guys see this becoming an issue, please ping us (by email) or the gardeners (with the gardener template) so we can review it further. Thanks again. -Melina 21:41, 24 September 2009 (UTC)