How to reference Chinese names? Following a question on here, I also decided to reflect on my referencing skills. My style guide APA Harvard 6th wants names as Last, First. But with Chinese names I have this problem: do I reverse their name or has it already been reversed?

And do all Chinese authors follow this last name-first name convention, so because of this ambiguity is it correct to cite all Chinese names e.g. Xiu Ling, with the italics always being the last name?


  When writing academic articles or essays, espeically in the bibliography, I also have trouble deciphering which to use for Chinese authors and what I do is tend to reverse it, because I know authors would not be aware of the Last Name, First Name convention in the west ***, especially if the Chinese authors in question do not have a big online presence (a name format set out by the authors themselves). And espeically if the style guide wants it a certain way e.g. APA Harvard wants it: Last, First too even for Western names e.g. Julia Roberts. Roberts, Julia. etc.


*** and if Westerners cite the wrong format e.g. Xiu Ling and they have to write it in APA style they may write it as Ling, Xiu incorrectly.
In publications outside China, I would expect Chinese authors to publish in the same format as other authors, "given name family name". Of course it is possible that the authors made a mistake, but ultimately you cannot necessarily account for that and I would suggest that it is not particularly likely.

However for Chinese publications, even those Chinese journals published in English, the order of the names may well be written in the Chinese format of family name first. Another thing to remember is that the vast majority of Chinese family names are one character/syllable, while given names may have multiple characters/syllables. So if there are authors with multiple syllables in the name, there is a good chance (although not 100%) that this is not the family name.