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by puszczyk
1016 days ago
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In Poland informally it’s always <given name> <last name>. Formally, it depends most places are on the same as informal, but particularly military and some other bureaucracies will use <last name> <given name>. I always thought this is a holdout from the pre-computer days to make it easier to sort alphabetically (last names are a bit better distributed than the popular first names). In France they seem to prefer <LAST NAME> (yes, all caps) <First name> even for less formal things. |
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Also this "reversal" had me confused when we hosted a French exchange student without knowing French (I spoke German, but the teachers knew my family were happy to host if they needed). His name was written like "KHALID Mohamed" and he was very polite so he didn't really correct me when I was calling him "Khalid", and since I was unfamiliar with Algerian names I had experience to suggest "Khalid" was more surname-y than firstname-y. It sorted itself out after a day or two though :-)