Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

re: Author Kano Yoshinori (Kano being the family name).

He is listed as both Yoshinori Kano (as per the western tradition of given name first) and Kano Yoshinori (as per the Japanese tradition of family name first).

Obviously, I would like to merge the author profiles. My instinct is that his name should be listed as Kano Yoshinori, as on the covers of his books, and as he is most widely known professionally. Is this correct, or should it be the other way?

Thank you.

My instinct is that his name should be listed as Kano Yoshinori, as on the covers of his books, and as he is most widely known professionally.

I would go with that, unless you can find an official author's site for him that gives his name differently.

I agree that it should most likely be Kano Yoshinori. The fact that he is sometimes listed the other way around may have nothing to do with Japanese vs. Western styling but rather the fact that many databases list authors as last name first anyway and the entries might have come from there. It's pretty easy to poke around and find examples such as "King Stephen" or "Steele Danielle" and this is obviously not due to Japanese styling.

I have gone ahead and merged both author profiles under "Kano Yoshinori", given the excellent replies. He is infact listed that way on the professional association's website to which he belonged (Nihon Ki-in).

Thanks for the input!

Have you checked to see the LoC's preference?

I did not, as it hadn't occurred to me. Thanks!

And according to the LoC, they have the name as Kano Yoshinori.

Thank you for that pointer. :)

Isn't it nice when multiple official sites agree? :)

but what about other Japanese authors? (e.g. Haruki Murakami)

And oh, Chinese authors. What about pseudonyms that don't really have a first name-last name format? (Lin Da, Bei Dao, etc. -- it's not even the name order, but that they're technically two syllables of one word, but the authors have separated them into two English words)

What I'm trying to ask is, is there a way for those authors to keep being sorted under L and B respectively if I enter them as Lin Da and Bei Dao in the author fields?

What I'm trying to ask is, is there a way for those authors to keep being sorted under L and B respectively if I enter them as Lin Da and Bei Dao in the author fields?

Not yet.