The FIRST shall be LAST; and the LAST shall be FIRST...

It is not uncommon for most of us who surf the net to have somehow keyed in our name and email address into some of the forms on the webpage, to request for a certain report or e-book to be delivered to our mailbox. Some of the forms would ask for your first name and last name, while some just the first name.

For the uninitiated, the last name is the surname or family name, and the first name is the given name. For example, for a typical Chinese name, Tan Ah Kow, Tan is the last name or family name, and Ah Kow is the first name or the given name. In this part of the world, we understand the structure of the name. Even our identification documents would carry the name as Tan Ah Kow. But, in the west, the name begins with the first name, followed by the last name. So, Tan Ah Kow would become Ah Kow Tan.

We may not realise the problem until one day, we receive a cheque from the USA and the payee name is Ah Kow Tan. Your bank record shows Tan Ah Kow, but your cheque writes Ah Kow Tan. Will the cheque be accepted and cleared into your bank account? Let me know if there is any bank that accepts a cheque with the name written in a reversed manner.

To avoid such a problem, when filling in forms from the west, it might make practical sense to write Tan as the first name, and Ah Kow as the last name, so that the name will be written as Tan Ah Kow.