Bahasa Indonesia contains words from Arabic, Javanese, Malay, Sanskrit, some foreign languages, and various Indonesian dialects. It is written very phonetically in Roman characters with spelling conventions visibly influenced by the Dutch, the former rulers of Indonesia. International communications are expected to be in English. This chapter focuses on practices and conventions on the island of Java, which may differ in minor respects from those of other regions of Indonesia. A child's name is entirely selected by its parents.
Most people have two names, but some have only one, and some have three.
To have more is very rare, at least on Java. Ethnic Chinese people may have Chinese names disguised by Dutch spellingfor example, Lie , Tjin , Tjoeng but many Chinese adopt Javanese names. Javanese names may be words you would find in a dictionary, or they may be purely personal names. A name is usually reserved for one gender or the other, but not always, so an Indonesian will not always know whether a particular person is male or female. People with more than one name are known by their first name, so Hamid Saleh is Mr. Hamid and is listed under H, and Saleh Hamid is Mr. Saleh , a different person, listed under S. Longer Javanese names, such as Darmawan , Hartono , and Widjaja , are usually reserved for second names.