Longest Name

[jewish_scientist]

What is the longest name, in terms of syllables, someone can have? Before you post some dude from the 1200's with a dozen title, there is a qualifier. By name, I mean how the person is referred to in regular conversation. For example, Franklin Delaware Roosevelt may be 8 syllables, but FDR is only 3. Given names, shortened names, and nicknames count. My guess that the limit is 5 syllables before a shortened version is make. My only example of this is the Pokemon Feraligatr (there should be an -er at the end, but the game could not hold that many characters).

[gmalivuk]

There's no reason to expect any answer to your "can" question. As for how long the names are that people do use (as opposed to can use), I expect the number is a lot more than 5.

(Incidentally FDR's middle name was not Delaware.)

[HES]

Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher Rees-Mogg is, currently, refereed to as such in "regular conversation".

[Eebster the Great]

Tikki Tikki Tembo-no Sa Rembo-chari Bari Ruchi-pip Peri Pembo's name was famously never to be abbreviated.

But seriously, I don't think this question has a meaningful answer.

[Copper Bezel]

It'll depend massively on cultural context. How much brevity in speech is valued, the structure of the language itself. In the West we presently abbreviate a fair bit more than we did a century ago in writing, and I think that's true to a lesser extent in speech as well. English has a lot of information per syllable and is spoken slowly; languages that leave all syllables open are often spoken more quickly, like moras in Japanese. Probably goes even further in that direction in languages with a limited palette of phonemes, etc.

[gmalivuk]

Do we really abbreviate more now than a century ago, if you control for register?

Sure, a tweet from today is more abbreviated than a longhand letter from a hundred years ago, but it's also more abbreviated than a longhand letter from today, as is a telegram from a hundred years ago.

A much bigger change has been the increase in how much writing is now informal.

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, you're right, and even if there is any difference, it'd be nearly impossible to filter out from all of the other much less subtle factors like that.

[Eebster the Great]

I don't know if there is any trend toward abbreviations in general, but we certainly recognize a much broader array of initialisms than our ancestors did a century ago.

[Soupspoon]

Johann Gambolputty de-von-Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein-von- knackerthrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-granderknotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mitz-weimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber- shönedanker-kalbsfleischmittleraucher-von-Hautkopft of Ulm..?

(Or my friend Huw. Huw Llanfairpwchgwyngychgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Not his real name. He's not actually a 'Huw'. That's just a joke, because he looks like Huw Edwards...)

[gmalivuk]

I don't know if there is any trend toward abbreviations in general, but we certainly recognize a much broader array of initialisms than our ancestors did a century ago.

Even that I'd want to see some evidence for.

[Eebster the Great]

I don't know if there is any trend toward abbreviations in general, but we certainly recognize a much broader array of initialisms than our ancestors did a century ago.

Even that I'd want to see some evidence for.

I don't have any evidence, but it seems apparent that initialisms are widely used on the internet and in text messages for a variety of phrases, and that this was not done to the same degree in the past.

[gmalivuk]

And I'm skeptical that your impression is accurate.

[Eebster the Great]

That is an article about telegraph operators. I never said more abbreviations existed today than in 1900 (though that's almost certainly true due to the increase in English-speaking population, if nothing else), but that they were more widely recognized. Do you think a typical person would understand telegraph abbreviations the way they understand text abbreviations today?

[eSOANEM]

But then you're not controlling for register which depends strongly on the medium and, as gmal said, the main effect is simply the change in the sorts of register people predominantly communicate in

[Eebster the Great]

Well people have always communicated predominantly in a casual manner, but in the past, that was almost exclusively through speech. I don't see how that changes my point. Apart from that, is there any register in which abbreviations used to be common in the past the way they are now? "Telegraphese" is not a register.

[Copper Bezel]

The TLA particularly seems like a nineteenth and twentieth century fixation. Like, was there a point in history where newspapers were writing stories about the EIC?

[gmalivuk]

The TLA particularly seems like a nineteenth and twentieth century fixation. Like, was there a point in history where newspapers were writing stories about the EIC?

You may be right, but we were only talking about the 20th and 21st centuries in any case.

Well people have always communicated predominantly in a casual manner, but in the past, that was almost exclusively through speech. I don't see how that changes my point. Apart from that, is there any register in which abbreviations used to be common in the past the way they are now? "Telegraphese" is not a register.

If we can't count telegrams then you can't count tweets or texts.

[Eebster the Great]

Well people have always communicated predominantly in a casual manner, but in the past, that was almost exclusively through speech. I don't see how that changes my point. Apart from that, is there any register in which abbreviations used to be common in the past the way they are now? "Telegraphese" is not a register.

If we can't count telegrams then you can't count tweets or texts.

The telegrams weren't written using these acronyms, they were just transmitted using them. Telegrams were shortened sometimes, of course, but not in that way, especially because the companies charged by the word, making much of that abbreviation pointless.

In other words, only an extremely tiny subset of people―telegraph operators―would recognize or use any of those abbreviations. But when people send text messages, they actually use them themselves, and the recipients have to recognize them. It's not the same thing at all.

[eSOANEM]

And people who don't text or tweet don't recognise lots of the initialisms used in them, it's an identical sitch to telegrams except you just have more people sending them

[Eebster the Great]

The fact that so many more people use and recognize them is pretty much the point. Texting is not a niche activity.

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, the original question we're talking about here was how much people abbreviate. Telegraph operators certainly" count", and are also a very small and not very significant number of instances in that tally.

[mathmannix]

My two cents: I think longer names are primarily used in order to distinguish names that are the same when shorter.

So "The" Bach has to be Johann Sebastian Bach because he had relatives named Johann Nicolaus Bach, Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Snagglepuss Bach, etc... and when you click on the Wikipedia article on "Johann Sebastian Bach", the first thing it says is, basically, if you meant his grandson, you should click on "Johann Sebastian Bach (painter)." While obviously "(painter)" was not part of his name, and I doubt he was ever called that four-word "name", he could have been, and that's how longer names come about. If he had another grandson who was a painter, they might be "Johann Sebastian Bach (oil painter)" and "Johann Sebastian Bach (house painter)" or something.

In summary, there is practically no limit as long as people keep having similar names that need to be further distinguished.

[Soupspoon]

You never mentioned P D Q Bach. I am disappoint!

[ThirdParty]

What is the longest name, in terms of syllables, someone can have? ... By name, I mean how the person is referred to in regular conversation. ... My guess that the limit is 5 syllables before a shortened version is make.

My two cents: I think longer names are primarily used in order to distinguish names that are the same when shorter.

For what it's worth, I refer to "Sextus Empiricus" thus in regular conversations, even though his name is six syllables and there isn't anyone I refer to as simply "Sextus".

[Lothario O'Leary]

My two cents: I think longer names are primarily used in order to distinguish names that are the same when shorter.

So "The" Bach has to be Johann Sebastian Bach because he had relatives named Johann Nicolaus Bach, Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Snagglepuss Bach, etc... and when you click on the Wikipedia article on "Johann Sebastian Bach", the first thing it says is, basically, if you meant his grandson, you should click on "Johann Sebastian Bach (painter)." While obviously "(painter)" was not part of his name, and I doubt he was ever called that four-word "name", he could have been, and that's how longer names come about. If he had another grandson who was a painter, they might be "Johann Sebastian Bach (oil painter)" and "Johann Sebastian Bach (house painter)" or something.

In summary, there is practically no limit as long as people keep having similar names that need to be further distinguished.

It does hit somewhat of a limit in that eventually some of the names become so useless in disambiguation that they are dropped anyway. The assorted Romans named Publius Cornelius Scipio (Africanus, Nasica...) tend to just be referred to as Scipio whatever, dropping the "Publius Cornelius", because if someone is a Scipio then by definition they are a Cornelius (and likely also a Publius).

The current president of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, is almost certainly referred to as Berdimuhamedow much more often than as Gurbanguly, even though the former (his last name) has six syllables and the latter (his first name) has four. If that counts, then this is a 6 syllable example for the OP.

Going back in history, it becomes hard to say what counts as a shortened name versus a mispronunciation; Nabu-kudurri-usur and Tukulti-pal-ešarra both have 7 syllables, while Nebuchadrezzar and Tiglath-pileser both have 5, despite being functionally the same names (Nebuchadnezzar, with a N, is a popularized typo).