Naming Things with Schema.org

• programming

Naming things is hard, that's a truth in programming and probably in life in general.

If your first language isn't English, then it's even harder.

How often did you spend time thinking about how to name the columns of a table for a person's first name and last name?

first_name last_name forename family_name given_name surname
Marcus Obst Marcus Obst Marcus Obst

In the Western hemisphere, we probably choose first_name and last_name and be done. But when we write an application to be used by an international audience, first and last name don't make sense anymore, because Asian names for example are written down with family name (last name) first, followed by the given name, that we call the first name.

To help with naming things, Schema.org provides a shared vocabulary to describe things, persons and services on the internet and there you'll find the use of givenName and familyName.

So when in doubt, check out https://schema.org.

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