Speaking of difficult parsing... these are how credits are listed for the film Mongol.  Since I had no personal knowledge when transcribing, I simply entered the credits as they appeared on screen and parsed -> first // all rest // last.

If anyone knows the cultural origin please tell me.    Or if you know how they should be parsed, let me know and I'll fix them.  The film is a joint Kazakhstan/Germany/Mongolia/Russia production, with most filming taking place in Mongolia & China. 

Ji Ri Mu Tu
Hong Jong Ba Tu
E Er Deng Ba Te Er
Su You Le Si Ren

I just bring these up to show that this isn't just a China/Korea/Japan issue - no agenda other than wanting to point out this is a multifaceted problem and may not have an easy solution.

In looking up the main actress, Khulan Chuluun, it seems Mongolian names display as Japanese names (patronymic first, personal name second - so it would be Chuluun Khulan, technically) but since her name was displayed in Western order in the credits, that's what I went with.

Then there is the issue of other alphabets and the use of these in credits.  Synner_man has already touched on that, but again, that also isn't limited to China/Korea/Japan, but is shared with anything using an alphabet that differs from English - the Cyrillic alphabet (which is the reason my profile for Battleship Potemkin has no credits) being one example.

Quoting ya_shin:

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Perfect example why proper parsing should be discussed. It's Mr. Chow, not Mr. Fat. His given name is Yun Fat.

Also, I want to repeat that I agree with the fact (and most people know I have lived in Asia for 12 years now) that in Chinese language the middle name concept does not exist. Not even that "Yun" could be considered given name and "Fat" the middle name, it is clearly "Yun Fat" together and together only.

Yeah. I think i got it correct the first time.

Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, while Chinese people, do not have Chinese names (or they do, but these aren't them). This is readily apparent. CLT doesn't tell us how to parse, which is sort of the main issue here. I should also point out it is not uncommon to have dual Chinese/English credits and the names written differently in the two languages. CLT won't help with that either.

Quoting Ace_of_Sevens:

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Quoting Jubal:

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What suggestion, Ace? I don't see one.

Sorting correctly means sort by family name. This is standard in all countries that use one, AFAIK, regardless of how the name is written

Ehm in China they mostly sort by given name For obvious reasons.

Taro

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Quoting Unicus69:

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Quoting Taro:

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I think the argument that culture should be left out of credit input is a valid point. But that brings up an interesting question:

middle name: is that just a word that is in the middle of the credit? Then this indeed is unrelated to culture and whenever we see three words, we should input that name as X/Y/Z

However, if middle name is the western concept of a middle name as it appears on a passport, then willing or not, culture automatically enters into it, as we try to force a standard from western culture on non-western names.

I don't know how Ken intented that field to be used, but if it is the western concept of a middle name, then culture automatically becomes an issue, as DarklyNoon pointed out.

Ken has indicated that 'last name' means 'surname'.  It doesn't take a giant leap to believe that 'middle name' means, well, 'middle name'.  For eastern names, where they do not have a middle name, that field should be left blank.  Where the documentation is needed, is to show where each part goes...'12/ /3' or '1/ /23'.

Exactly what I think

Quoting ya_shin:

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Quoting Graveworm:

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Ehm in China they mostly sort by given name For obvious reasons.

While I am not exactly in China (although this may be arguable...) I am not sure where this comes from (unless it's sarcasm, then ignore me).

Sorting in a phone book or similar is of course still done by family name first, then by given name. Just like in Western countries.

By the way, sorting is firstly done via "strokes", so, the more "lines" are needed to write the character, the further down in the list the name will be. ...and now I am curious how priority is set between names with same stroke count (not sure why I didn't ask this before...).

As I said MOSTLY by given name. Of course any directory is broken doen into family names but that is almost pointless as there are towns in China where everyone has the same family name. With over a billion people sharing 50 family names it is next to useless. So effectively it is sorted on given name as that is where the index comes in which leads me onto your second point. 

Characters have a radical, the first drawn part of a character. This is the index and whilst it's the number of strokes it's very arbitary and the only way to sort it is to use an index of radicals. Having done that it gives you a cross reference to the second drawn part. Again there is an index, this then gives you the page of the actual entries that start with that character. So to find a name in a phone book you use an index to take you to the page and that is a sub set of the family names.
This process is a whole subject in chinese schools and it goes on for a good few years of their studies in primary schools.

In Korea until relatively recently you could not marry anyone with the same family name. And there most people have one of 5 names!

Thank you for the detailed information, Graveworm

Also, I see now what you meant, since there are only a "few" family names in use they are technically sorting by given name...