I often see the Chinese form of this professional's name in use here.

But as far as I can tell, the same people don't talk about Wang Mingyuan (O Meien) or Zhang Xu (Cho U).

So why Yu Zhengqi and not Yo Seiki? Has he said that he prefers the Chinese reading of his name? Otherwise I don't understand the preference.

Pandanet has been using Wang Mingyuan and Zhang Xu for a few years, that is something that they didn't do back in the day. The nihon kiin website gives a romanization for Cho U as Chang Hsu which is Wade-Giles that corresponds to Zhang Xu in pinyin but I think the katakana might not correspond to Chinese. As a side note Shinji Takao has been consistently styled something like Takaoko Shinji on pandanet, that is maybe there is more to this than customs and references.

I have seen both spellings recently also. I think this is mostly because he competed internationally with a wider audience where many people following the games don't know how or care that his name is pronounced differently in Japan. There also seems to be a "pride" issue for some people that forces their understanding, and spelling.

Practically speaking I prefer the Japanese pronunciation spelling because it matches the furigana when reading the more frequent domestic tournament game record.

If it came down to it though, I'd be fine with consistently seeing/using 余　正麒.

Compared to O Meien and Cho U, has he been living longer in Japan? Same times? Less?

Also, O Meien and Cho U are Nihon Kiin players. Yo Seiki plays for (in? at? with?) Kansai Kiin. Maybe they have different policies.

In this video at 2:51:44
https://youtu.be/j3iBl1poSew?t=10299

Michael Redmond says "Yo Seiki" and doesn't know the Chinese pronunciation.

Related to this the 2nd game of the Judan match is ongoing.

On https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/news/jp/judan/60/ it is Kyo Kagen and Yu Zhengqi.

It is relayed on Pandanet and it Hsu Chia Yuan and Yu Zhen Qi there.

I think this makes no sense from the perspective that some people have a preference (other than the players themselves maybe and in that case there is inconsistency).

The plot thickens.

Here is the live stream of Judan game 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi6gZLFvNJ8

Is it just me, or are some of the White stones quite dirty-looking?

Japanese publications always use the Chinese-style when writing with Latin characters. It makes sense - why would they not? The publications are translating the name "許　家元," not the pronunciation "キョ　カゲン."

I was wondering whether Yo Seiki and Kyo Kagen were actually born in Taiwan. I couldn't find the information on Sensei's but good old GoGoD NamesOct2019XML.xml had it.

The bottom line for me, and presumably others, is that I don't know how to read 許　家元 or 余　正麒 but I can read キョ　カゲン and よ　せいき. And it's not like you can tell whether someone is Chinese from a game record. You might not even know there is a Chinese spelling of their name unless you go reading about them in English. And it's only the top players that are mentioned in English. I haven't been reading NHK's Go Course much lately but there are a bunch of games between players I've never read about in English. Following Japanese media of Japanese professionals it makes sense for me to write the Japanese pronunciation but I understand that official publications would use the Chinese spelling.

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I noticed them too. I think they are just old, not dirty. It is possible to bleach shell stones but I believe I read that makes them brittle.

It is pointless, unless you are a control freak, trying to impose sense on names - in any language.

The problems Japanese face with names like Yu Zhengqi is that they usually have no idea how to pronounce them (no more than most English speakers do). The Nihon Ki-in tried recently to promote a pseudo-Chinese sounding spelling but gave up after a short while.

Another problem they have is that the Taiwanese do not use pinyin. They prefer Wade Giles, with some idiosyncratic embellishments. For them to adopt the W-G spelling would be to make a political statement that would not go down well in mainland China. W-G is just as problematical for English speakers. How do you say pinyin Xu? Many English speaker says Zoo. But does W-G Hsu really help? And what's the difference between ch'i and chi in W-G. Its pure happenstance, but Japanese spelling of Chinese names is a lot easier on English-speaking tongues.

A further problem is individual preferences. Straight off the bat, there is the latent problem that we might not know the preference. But if we do, and accept it, we lose consistency with other names. There are many cases, but just to highlight a few from players I have met and/or got their name card. Chin Kaei was born in mainland China, so we could call him Chen Jiarui. But he moved to Hong Kong when very young, when it was still a Brit8sh protectorate, and so acquired a Cantonese reading, Chan Ka Yui. However, he settled in Japan (at the Kansai Ki-in) and so became Chin Kaei to them. But he doesn't like that, and his very (VERY) strong preference, as on his name card, is to use the rendering Chien for his surname. At GoGoD we ignored that.

But GoGoD uses Yu Zhengqi. The reason is that unlike, say, Rin Kaiho and O Meien, he did not go to Japan as an insei and become a pro there. YU became a pro in Taiwan first. There are thus games on the record of him as a Taiwanese pro. You can easily argue with that reasoning, but life's too short for such arguments, and I'd be inclined to say "go forth and multiply" to anyone who tries to stir the pot.

The Korean 9-dan Ch'eon P'ing-cho 千豐祚 [천 풍조] is an interesting case. The following romanisations have been used outside of GoGoD: Chun Poongjo, Chun Pongjo, Chun, Chon Poongcho, and Cheon Pungjo. But his own preferred romanisation on his name card is Chun Poongjho. He is a Russian speaker, and the jho is nod to the Russian letter for zh. He also likes to use the name Viktor Chun!

And all of this overlooks the inclination of people to change their own names. GoGoD's own T. Mark Hall changed his name by deed poll to T Mark Hall. It screwed up utility company computer systems, but that was part of the point .

My previous post was mostly a cover for letting people know that this game was taking place. I didn't get to watch longer than move 70 but at that point it is very exciting and unique.

The Nihon Kiin website appears to give Chinese names with either pinyin or Wade-Giles. This obviously follows to some extend if the player has connections to Taiwan or not. It is however not so simple, there are exceptions. The Kansai Kiin has everyone's blood type but not how to write their name in Latin alphabet.

I suspect that the players are asked to fill in their information, either directly or someone from the kiin office approached them to ask. Maybe it is just speculation but seeing that some have their name styled in Wade-Giles others in pinyin I don't see how they would go about it any other way in practice.

Transliterating names is difficult, you could use the wrong system the wrong language or make any other error. For example O Rissei is given (on the NK website) as Wang Lichen instead of Wang Licheng, is this an error? Rin Kaiho is given in tongyong pinyin as Lin Haifong instead of hanyu pinyin Lin Haifeng, which I thought was an error or invention because I am not familiar with tonyong pinyin. Like I said this is likely to have had input from the players, anything else is too complicated.


Did you post a thread about the NHK Go Course? I am not at all familiar.

One benefit of Yü Chengch`i's many aliases was apparent after viewing the whole game record. If he chooses to escape his duties to play the third game, out of shame, the kiin may never be able to track him down. I don't remember anyone doing this, not hiding from the kiin (that was a joke), but to blunder like this in a top title match

No I have not but I just made a post that was supposed to be short: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=18663

That's interesting. I checked the copyright information on one of Cho U's books and it gives his name with Chinese characters and Latin characters, which matches the wording on the Nihon Kiin.

Kind of related but I've heard that when students arrive in Japan they are given katakana translations of their name. Many names are standardized but sometimes people have slightly different spelling or different pronunciations ("thanks parents!") and they can choose the spelling they want.

So maybe it's the same thing the other way around. The first time a person needs to spell their name with Latin characters they just choose the spelling they prefer.

The problem of how to pronounce isn't limited to names from languages not normally written with Roman characters.

Many decades ago (late 60's through early 70's) I taught secondary school and as a "long term substitute" at the start of each year it took a few days for them to decide where they most needed me (I was certified in math and all the sciences). So until decided, just a regular substitute. About to call the roll, I noticed that the classroom of young faces was looking expectant, waiting for something. A quick eyeball down the list and I knew what it was....... Sioban O'Laoghaire

They were so disappointed when instead of stumbling or coming out with who knows what I smoothly rattled off "Shevan Oleary"

I think I had a eureka moment! Before I was perplexed why Takao Shinji is usually rendered Takaoko Shinji on Pandanet, well I think I got it. Maybe it is 高尾子. According to Google this honorific is reserved in Japanese for women, I don't know if that is actually true, but great philosophers suffer the same honorific in Chinese (i.e. Kongzi and Mengzi) and that was my eureka moment. Hope it is correct but if not then it was a good feeling while it lasted.

Btw I think Takaozi will be playing Murakawa Daisuke in Kisei league this evening or morning (time zones?). These S league games are pretty fun because they are the longest games played in one session these days.