Incorrect behavior of name.firstName() function

[JoCat]

Describe the bug

When using the faker.name.firstName() function with a non-standard locale and without passing a gender value to the function, the name is still displayed in English.

Reproduction

For example:

import { faker } from '@faker-js/faker';

faker.locale = 'ru'; // Set another locale

const incorrectFirstName = faker.name.firstName(); // Jack (incorrect)
const correctFirstName = faker.name.firstName(0); // Евгений (correct)
const correctFirstName2 = faker.name.firstName(1); // Жанна (correct)

demo: https://stackblitz.com/edit/faker-js-demo-6fb7x2?file=index.ts

Additional Info

No response

[Shinigami92]

Yeah, thx, we already know that the name functions are really buggy 🙁
We will target this as one of the top prios when starting working on v6.1

[JoCat]

thanks, maybe there is a problem in the code here:

faker/src/name.ts

Lines 38 to 65 in 03c3d11

	if (typeof gender === 'string') {
	if (gender.toLowerCase() === 'male') {
	gender = 0;
	} else if (gender.toLowerCase() === 'female') {
	gender = 1;
	}
	}
	if (typeof gender !== 'number') {
	if (typeof this.faker.definitions.name.first_name === 'undefined') {
	gender = this.faker.datatype.number(1);
	} else {
	// Fall back to non-gendered names if they exist and gender wasn't specified
	return this.faker.random.arrayElement(
	this.faker.definitions.name.first_name
	);
	}
	}
	if (gender === 0) {
	return this.faker.random.arrayElement(
	this.faker.definitions.name.male_first_name
	);
	} else {
	return this.faker.random.arrayElement(
	this.faker.definitions.name.female_first_name
	);
	}
	}

at least it differs from what is in the lastName and middleName functions, which work correctly

[Shinigami92]

I mean... that is quite the whole function except of 2-3 lines 😉
Maybe also have a look into #440

[Shinigami92]

Needs re-evaluation after #644 was merged

[JoCat]

Now displays Deprecation Warning

[Shinigami92]

Yes, that is freshly implemented by us 🙂
Please do not use 0 or 1 as parameter, but 'male' or 'female'

[JoCat]

Yes, that is freshly implemented by us 🙂
Please do not use 0 or 1 as parameter, but 'male' or 'female'

yes, didn't notice
It turns out the bug is still there

[ST-DDT]

This issue is more complex then it looks like.

The basics:

• female is defined in ru
• male is defined in ru
• generic is defined in en (fallback language)
• If generic is not defined, we will use female or male randomly as fallback.

The possible solutions:

1. Create/Configure a faker instance without the en fallback (Suggested workaround for now)
2. Check whether generic is defined in the same language as female and male, if not treat it as not defined

• This cannot be done via faker.locales[faker.locale].name.xyz because we wish to add support for multiple fallback languages in v7 (en_AU_ocker -> en_AU -> en).
  Thus we would have to add a new "trace" property similar to definitions, that returns the source locale of a property faker.trace.name.firstname => 'en'

3. Create/Generate the generic source file automatically, if it is missing (pnpm run generate:locales)

The generic file may contain entries for non binary genders.

All name methods (prefix, suffix, firstname, middlename, lastname, ...) should behave the same in this regard.

[JoCat]

yes, it looks like when specifying localeFallback in ru, the code works correctly
https://stackblitz.com/edit/faker-js-demo-hxvbec?file=index.ts
although this is more like a temporary fix, and should not be taken as a full solution to the problem

If I understand correctly, the third option (indicate male and female names (surnames, patronymics) in the general array) is acceptable

[ST-DDT]

Team decision

Change data-structure:

name.female_first_name ->person.first_name.female

Example:

type Gendered = {
  female: string[]
  male: string[]
  generic: string[]
};

[matthewmayer]

Maybe I'm missing somethng, but isn't the simplest solution to add a first_name.ts file to locales which are missing one which simply concatenates the existing male_first_name and female_first_name lists?

Had a go at this in #1610

[ST-DDT]

If you add a new locale or change the locale config (for most of the parts in person), then you will encounter the bug again.
Changing the structure prevents that because then you have to either configure the entire block correctly or you will get compile time errors. You can either not define anything, define only generic, define only male and female or define all.

[ST-DDT]

The effect of the bug is fixed. The implementation/structure should still be adjusted accordingly.

[ST-DDT]

Further changes tracked via #1677