database - Personal names in a global application: What to store

Question

Storing personal names in a structured way seems quite difficult when it comes to an application which is used by users from lots of different countries. The application I'm working on could theoretically be used by anyone from any place in the world.

Most often a given name (first name / forename) and surname seems to be used. In which case those two could simply be stored in the user database table.

• Is storing "given name" and "surname" in the user table enough for a globally used application? Please give your opinion with a motivation.
• Do you have any other suggestions?
• Are there any good guides on how to solve this?

Some important facts:

• Communication between users (who reside at the same or different companies and may be in different countries).
• It's important that searching for users by name feels natural to users and that all important parts of a person name are searchable.
• It would be nice if, when sending a message to someone in another country the system should be able to help by suggesting a proper greeting. It will probably be hard for arabic names, at least from what I've read as they seem to have a complex structure.

Answer 1

There isn't really a universal structured way to do this. I'd have a big field for "Full Name" and another field for "Display Name". Both unicode.

For example, in Spanish-speaking countries, IIRC, people usually have FOUR names. Two given names, and two surnames (one from the father, one from the mother). Arabs essentially have a linked list of names as far back as they choose to go (So-and-so, son of so-and-so, son of so-and-so, ...). East Asian countries tend to put the given names last, whilst Europeans put the given names first.