What is "Yomi name"?

Brian Tillman [Outlook MVP 2007-2019] 25,920 Reputation points
2012-08-20T20:26:02+00:00

I'm trying to add a contact.  If I click on the plus sign below the "First name", "Last name", and "Company" field, I see a pop-up whose first two entries, "Yomi name" and "Yomi company" don't mean anything to me.  Here's a picture:

What the heck does that mean?

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Contacts

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Anonymous
2012-09-06T20:38:39+00:00

Hi Brian,

Yomi name and Yomi company name are fields for entering the phonetic equivalent for Japanese names. In Japan, there is commonly a Furigana equivalent for the Kanji name that is used for sorting and searching.

HTH,

Stacey

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-09-08T14:29:04+00:00

    I am German. Germany is a federal republic. We use a single postal code system for the whole federal republic, not state specific. There is no need for this state field. I do not even understand, why you need it in other federal states, why you need it in the U. S. A. But what I do understand even less is your reason of complaint. I just do not need to use the field for my German contacts, but I am glad it is there for my contacts in the U. S. A., so I am for the Yomi fields for my Japanese contacts. I just think you should not show the state field in the standard view but just as an extra option for those fiew people living in the U. S. A. ;-) The whole rest of the world does not need it.

    Do you understand the subtle irony?

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-10-24T03:10:17+00:00

    In my perception, user interface needs to be intuitive. Things that don't make sense for the user (like 'yomi name') cause frustration and can turn people away from the product. And, I guess, this is the opposite of what Microsoft needs.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-06-07T08:36:08+00:00

    "Yomi <name>" simply means "Phonetic Name."**** They should update the menus to call it that on English systems, then it wouldn't even need an explanation.

    But it's not a useless field and it's not just for Japanese.  You can use it to help you remember how to say any name that's unusual or difficult to pronounce, which can be very useful for business contacts. (I do use it for Japanese names.)

    By the way, this exact feature and implementation has been available in Apple's contact manager since the first iPhone and I don't remember anyone complaining about it.  To see it, open the Contacts App, add or edit a contact, scroll down to the bottom, click the circled + icon for "add field" and whoomp there it is.  It even syncs automatically with Outlook 2010 via iTunes.

    The only problem I have with this field is that I can only get it to sync with the Windows 8 People App and no other desktop clients, like Windows Mail.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-09-07T15:14:29+00:00

    Sorry, it was late when I wrote that, so I was perhaps less tolerant than I normally try to be.

    Yomi was as I recall always there in Hotmail, too, but probably buried even deeper than it is now. It has always been included - along with all sorts of other fields - in CSV export from Windows Live Contacts (https://contacts.live.com).

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