When did this practice (custom) begin? Or become so common?

is this mentioned in the French version of Wikipedia?

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-French-people-write-their-surnames-in-capital-letters

>>> The practice of putting given names in upper- and lowercase and
surnames in all uppercase is not limited to the French. It is quite
prevalent in Europe and other parts of the world.

--------------- is it common in Germany, Austria ???

Uncommon for (the) [Francoise SAGAN] because
this method of capitalization is WHOLLY-practical.

So it's even less common for older authors, etc.:
Goethe, Wagner, Shakespeare, Doyle, Poe, ...

i suppose... using it for older authors is like "Göthe" for Goethe

On 2024-03-29, HenHanna <HenHanna@devnull.tb> wrote:

> https://www.quora.com/Why-do-French-people-write-their-surnames-in-capital-letters
>
> >>> The practice of putting given names in upper- and lowercase and
> surnames in all uppercase is not limited to the French. It is quite
> prevalent in Europe and other parts of the world.
>
> --------------- is it common in Germany, Austria ???

No.

The underlying issue is that in parts of Europe, the order
last name/first name can be found to varying degrees. For French
names, the names themselves aren't always unambiguously first names
or last names, and with both orderings possible, capitalization is
used to disambiguate.

In Germany, where last name/first name order survives in bureaucratic
contexts and dialectal use, capitalization is not used. Ambiguity
does not appear to be a problem in practice.

In Hungarian, last name/first name is the standard order, e.g.
"Orbán Viktor":
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orb%C3%A1n_Viktor

Sometimes East Asians capitalize their family name in Western
contexts, since there is permanent confusion about their native vs.
Western name order.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

Christian Weisgerber hat am 30.03.2024 um 21:22 geschrieben:
>
> The underlying issue is that in parts of Europe, the order
> last name/first name can be found to varying degrees. For French
> names, the names themselves aren't always unambiguously first names
> or last names, and with both orderings possible, capitalization is
> used to disambiguate.
>
> In Germany, where last name/first name order survives in bureaucratic
> contexts and dialectal use, capitalization is not used. Ambiguity
> does not appear to be a problem in practice.

It isn't, with _German_ names. As a translator, I often have to write
Italian names in German translations of Italian documents and I always
capitalize the surnames.

1) You wrote correctly that the order last name/first name can be found
to varying degrees, especially in official documents.
2) You also wrote correctly that "for French (and Italian) names, the
names themselves aren't always unambiguously first names or last names".
3) Finally, German readers do not always know which is an Italian first
name and which is a surname. Actually, in some cases even a native
Italian like me has to ask that person. If I ever have to do with
Alessandro Marcello (both are common first names), which is the surname?
Alessandro as https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Alessandro or
Marcello as https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_Marcello?

P.S. I read regularly (when I have access to a desktop) only AUE. Please
answer there and tell me, if this discussion is diverted to AEU or
sci.lang only.

Silvano wrote:

> Christian Weisgerber hat am 30.03.2024 um 21:22 geschrieben:
>>
>> The underlying issue is that in parts of Europe, the order
>> last name/first name can be found to varying degrees. For French
>> names, the names themselves aren't always unambiguously first names
>> or last names, and with both orderings possible, capitalization is
>> used to disambiguate.
>>
>> In Germany, where last name/first name order survives in bureaucratic
>> contexts and dialectal use, capitalization is not used. Ambiguity
>> does not appear to be a problem in practice.

> It isn't, with _German_ names. As a translator, I often have to write
> Italian names in German translations of Italian documents and I always
> capitalize the surnames.

> 1) You wrote correctly that the order last name/first name can be found
> to varying degrees, especially in official documents.
> 2) You also wrote correctly that "for French (and Italian) names, the
> names themselves aren't always unambiguously first names or last names".
> 3) Finally, German readers do not always know which is an Italian first
> name and which is a surname. Actually, in some cases even a native
> Italian like me has to ask that person. If I ever have to do with
> Alessandro Marcello (both are common first names), which is the surname?
> Alessandro as https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Alessandro or
> Marcello as https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_Marcello?

> P.S. I read regularly (when I have access to a desktop) only AUE. Please
> answer there and tell me, if this discussion is diverted to AEU or
> sci.lang only.

A funny thing about this is that, I'll bet, ambiguity between given names
and surnames is much more common with English names than with French,
Italian, or German, but we don't feel any need to capitalize surnames.
When a surname is given first, it's almost always followed by a comma.

--
Jerry Friedman

jerryfriedman <jerry.friedman99@gmail.com> wrote:
> Silvano wrote:
>
>> Christian Weisgerber hat am 30.03.2024 um 21:22 geschrieben:
>>>
>>> The underlying issue is that in parts of Europe, the order
>>> last name/first name can be found to varying degrees. For French
>>> names, the names themselves aren't always unambiguously first names
>>> or last names, and with both orderings possible, capitalization is
>>> used to disambiguate.
>>>
>>> In Germany, where last name/first name order survives in bureaucratic
>>> contexts and dialectal use, capitalization is not used. Ambiguity
>>> does not appear to be a problem in practice.
>
>
>> It isn't, with _German_ names. As a translator, I often have to write
>> Italian names in German translations of Italian documents and I always
>> capitalize the surnames.
>
>> 1) You wrote correctly that the order last name/first name can be found
>> to varying degrees, especially in official documents.
>> 2) You also wrote correctly that "for French (and Italian) names, the
>> names themselves aren't always unambiguously first names or last names".
>> 3) Finally, German readers do not always know which is an Italian first
>> name and which is a surname. Actually, in some cases even a native
>> Italian like me has to ask that person. If I ever have to do with
>> Alessandro Marcello (both are common first names), which is the surname?
>> Alessandro as https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Alessandro or
>> Marcello as https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_Marcello?
>
>> P.S. I read regularly (when I have access to a desktop) only AUE. Please
>> answer there and tell me, if this discussion is diverted to AEU or
>> sci.lang only.
>
> A funny thing about this is that, I'll bet, ambiguity between given names
> and surnames is much more common with English names than with French,
> Italian, or German, but we don't feel any need to capitalize surnames.
> When a surname is given first, it's almost always followed by a comma.

Aiui italians don't do that at all.

On a note of indeterminate relatedness, italians only capitalise the first
letter of acronyms.

On 04.04.2024 07:15, Antonio Marques wrote:

>jerryfriedman <jerry.friedman99@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

>>A funny thing about this is that, I'll bet, ambiguity between given names
>>and surnames is much more common with English names than with French,
>>Italian, or German, but we don't feel any need to capitalize surnames.
>>When a surname is given first, it's almost always followed by a comma.

In Germany, both in use - either comma or capitalization.

>Aiui italians don't do that at all.
>
>On a note of indeterminate relatedness, italians only capitalise the first
>letter of acronyms.

In Germany too, yet not as often as in Italy. E.g. Nato (in many texts
though NATO).

Tim

(f'up to sci.lang)