What is the only European country to use the Eastern order in names?

Eastern Order = Family name followed by Given name - e.g. Namath Joe

Western Order = Given name followed by Family name - e.g. Joe Namath

Hungary?

quote:

Originally posted by mozart56:
Hungary?

Probably not: I'm a Hungarian dog. (See my reply to the other name question posted by DG). If it is Hungary then that would be a relief!

It is Hungary. Jó munka, Mozart! (Good job)

Fred, I'm surprised. I assumed that you'd get this immediately.

From Wikipedia -

Hungarian names use the the "eastern name order", or family name followed by given name. Hungary is the only European country to to do so. So the terms "first name" and "last name" are potentially confusing and should be avoided, as they do not in this case denote the given and family names respectively.

This ordering doesn't apply to non-Hungarian names, e.g. "Tony Blair" will remain "Tony Blair" also in Hungarian texts. However, rulers' names are always translated, if they have a Hungarian equivalent, e.g. Elizabeth II becomes II. Erzsébet, Pope Benedict XVI becomes XVI. Benedek pápa. (In some pre-20th century texts, foreign names were Magyarized. The best known example is Jules Verne, whose name was often translated to Verne Gyula, where all the letters in the family name are pronounced with Hungarian pronounciation.)

By law every person can have a maximum of two surnames (most people have only one; those who have two have to hyphenate them) and a maximum of two given names (religious names not included, see below). The given names have to be chosen by the parents from an officially approved list of several thousand names; if the chosen name is not on the list, the parents can apply to get the chosen name approved. The names get approval if they aren't derogatory, can be written and pronounced easily and can be recognised as either male or female. Recently the list got widened by many foreign names, which have to be written following their Hungarian spelling, e.g. Jennifer becomes Dzsenifer or Jessica as Dzsesszika.

Those who belong to an officially recognized minority in Hungary can also choose names from their own culture, even if the name is not included on the official list.
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By the way, I used Joe Namath as an example because he was also a clue. While most Americans would answer "Willie or William" as his middle name, Joe, the grandson of a Hungarian immigrant who worked in the coal mines and steel mills in Pennsylvania, was born Joseph Michael Namath. (Even Wikipedia has this wrong. The "Joe Willie" came about when Namath was in college in Alabama as a joke. He felt as if every male in the South had a name like that.) Joseph and Michael are very common names for Hungarians born in the US. In Hungary, his last name would have been spelled "Nemeth" (nay - MAHT or nuh - MAHT). It means "the German" or "the foreigner". A variation of that is found all over Eastern Europe; the villiage that Germans that Peter the Great brought to Russia lived in was known as Nemetsky Slobodan (or sobor?), the German suburb. It must have been seen by the Slavs that all foreigners were German.

DG ,the only thing that confuses me, is the fact that "Iceland" is also part of Europe and also fits your question and answer. Could you clarify?

You asked:
"What is the only European country to use the Eastern order in names"?

Iceland uses a patronymic system.The given name is followed by the patronymic name. I suppose that this is a form of the Western system or order. The given name is first, followed by the patronymic name. The listing of given names first in the phone directory is a matter of ease of finding people. Everyone goes by their given name rather than a last name. Jon Stefánsson (below) would be called Jon or Jon Stefánsson, but never Mr. Stefánsson.

From Wikipedia -
For example, a man named Jón Stefánsson has a son named Fjalar. Fjalar's last name will not be Stefánsson like his father's; it will become Jónsson, literally indicating that Fjalar is the son of Jón (Jóns + son).

The same practice is used for daughters. Jón Stefánsson's daughter Katrín would not have the last name Stefánsson; she would have the name Jónsdóttir. Again, the last name literally means "Jón's daughter" (Jóns + dóttir).

But the Hungarians put the family name (what we call the last name) first. Iceland regards the last names as adjectives more than names. Hungarians think the last name is more important; after all, it is the family name. The man known to the West as John Hunyadi, father of Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus (Hunyadi Mátyás in Hungarian), is known in Hungary as Hunyadi János.

In the book Dracula, the Count refers to the English solicitor sent to his castle as Harker Jonathon.

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:

quote:

Originally posted by mozart56:
Hungary?

Probably not: I'm a Hungarian dog. (See my reply to the other name question posted by DG). If it is Hungary then that would be a relief!

It is?

That's the problem with us third-generation immigrant dogs: we lose our culture