When western names are translated in Japanese and Chinese, we use a little dot thing. For example, Harry Potter is ハリー・ポッター in Japanese and 哈利·波特 in Chinese. The dot thing signifies first name first.

I can see a language-mucking charge if someone doesn't realise that, say, Uzumaki Naruto's last name is Uzumaki and has been treating it like it's his first name the entire time. (For example, in IAHF2, I spent Takeda Kane's entire screentime treating her first name as "Takeda", but that was more because I was trying to parallel IAHF1's Nurse Takara. I'm sure someone else has done something similar out of sheer ignorance!) Japanese names can be used in both orders, though -- my students write their names in both orders, regardless of whether or not it's accompanied by kanji. I don't think anyone in the PPC is writing a mission of a Japanese fic, so there's really no point in nitpicking someone using "Naruto Uzumaki" in a Japanese fic. Either way, it wouldn't create a mini.

For Chinese, it would absolutely depend on the media. Danmei novels for example mostly require the entire full name in Eastern order: Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji. Wuxian by itself wouldn't cause a mini, but it would read as odd. Wuxian Wei would also be odd, and might create the inverted character, since it's against the genre's naming convention. I'd also even argue that referring to personal names (ex. Wei Ying) with just the first name (so, "Ying", in this case) would be a language-mucking charge because you're just letting this single-sound name sit around by itself which is against the genre's naming convention. But I don't think it creates a mini. Maybe it creates a baby or cherries? (Since that's other words that sound like "Ying".) But that's dependent on the mission writer's preferences. Narrative Laws of Comedy before nitpicking, honestly.

On the other hand, Chinese game Genshin Impact has single-sound names like "Xiao" without any surname, but since that's just how the game has named him, nothing needs to happen.

As for Japanese-versus-Chinese name readings, I also wouldn't make minis unless someone misspelt it (which, ha, have fun, hiragana-to-romaji can have variable spellings as I've learnt from my own students). For example, Wei Wuxian becomes Gi Musen in Japanese and Lan Wangji becomes Ran Bouki. These are official name readings for the MDZS dubs, so who are we to say they're mini-creating misspellings? The issue is also, what kind of person would be using the Japanese readings for MDZS characters if they're writing a fic in English? At best they'd have heard the Japanese dub of the donghua, but they'd probably have seen subtitles change it back to Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. If they're fluent enough in Japanese to understand the Japanese dub, wouldn't they have searched up the kanji for their names and gotten the Chinese spellings? Why would those people be writing fics in English?

Someone would have to go out of their way to use the Japanese readings if they're writing English fic, in which case you'd probably end up with language-mucking charges alongside, possibly, fangirl Japanese and conflating Chinese and Japanese culture charges. That'd really be the only time in which I could see it becoming an issue in English fic.

Finally, as I've noted on the mini-Xuanwu page: the variability of romanising Eastern names causes some alternate spellings that are not misspellings. For example, based on how one chooses to render Bakugo Katsuki's name, you could get Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugō Katsuki, Bakugô Katsuki, Bakugoh Katsuki, Bakugoo Katsuki -- and then ofc, you can flip his name around since his first name is Katsuki. All of these ways to render Japanese long vowels are valid!

You'll even end up with variable romanisations for foreign names in anime, too -- Nataliya, Natalya, Natalia for ナターリヤ・アルロフスカヤ, Mila versus Mira for ミラ・バビチェヴァ, Victor versus Viktor for ヴィクトル・ニキフォロフ. Sometimes you can't even rely on the official romanisation from the show -- I think the showrunners for Yuri on Ice tried to say it was "Sala Crispino", for example, instead of "Sara Crispino". Ultimately, as Nesh says, it depends on internal consistency in the fic. It may be down to the author's style. (I use "Viktor Nikiforov" in my fics, for example, since I wanted to render it with the Russian spelling, but for the one YOI mission I did, I used "Victor".)

TL;DR Rendering names in Eastern languages for Western audiences trying to write fics in English is hard and we need to give writers a bit of grace rather than insisting everything creates a mini.

I think, when I get my first mission, I'll use "anything except an initial capitalization error makes a mini, with the initial capitalization the same, unless starting a sentence" as my rule. Seems a logical compromise to me.

Like, people were very keen on spotting and cataloguing all the minis for a couple of years or so, and were taking any excuse to make more. I think we even scolded someone for trying to retcon a mini into existence from someone else's older mission, as though the mission-writer had committed some grave sin by choosing not to highlight every single error. Rude!

The obsessive attitude around it quite possibly what drove me to have Strong Feelings about mini creation. Like, calm down, people. Quit grasping at straws and focus on something more important. {X D

(This is sort of why I don't go in for POVs, either. They're fine, I don't hate the idea, I just don't have a drive to make the stuff, collect the stuff, share the stuff... IDK. It's just stuff, and pretty much all the same stuff at that. *shrug* But if you enjoy it, that's fine!)

~Neshomeh wanders away whistling "Little Boxes."