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Strategic Recommendation: Enable Multilingual Support (i.e. 'EN' Toggle) for Contact and Employee Names

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hrcrmcontactstranslationsLanguagesNames
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Mohd Imran

Hellos Fellows, 

I hope you are all enjoying

We are long-time users and advocates of Odoo, and we appreciate the platform’s robust multilingual capabilities, particularly in areas like product names, website content, and UI terms.

However, we’ve encountered a growing functional need in our HR and CRM processes that we'd like to bring to your attention, with a simple and elegant solution that builds on what Odoo already does exceptionally well.


The Need

In many multilingual regions, especially the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Asia, it's essential to store and display employee and contact names in more than one language. (It's not about translating the name, but having the other language's versions.)

For example:

  • Arabic-speaking users must see names in Arabic for clarity and comfort.
  • English-speaking users need the same records in English for legal, reporting, or international coordination.
  • Legal contracts, payroll exports, and internal reports often require dual-language name fields.

Currently, Odoo does not support multilingual values for core identity fields like:

  • res.partner.name (Contact Name)
  • hr.employee.name (Employee Name)

This forces teams to either:

  • Create multiple custom fields (e.g., “Arabic Name”, “English Name”, etc.), which adds clutter and manual effort.
  • Or compromise on usability and legal compliance by storing names in only one language.


The Solution (No Disruption Required)

We respectfully recommend making the name field on Contacts and Employees is translatable, just like Product Name fields.

This would:

  • Enable the existing translation popup (EN / AR / FR) already used in Odoo.
  • Let users enter name versions per language.
  • Automatically show the appropriate version based on the user's interface language.
  • It has zero impact on existing users or database logic, since translation support is optional and UI-level.

This change would be:

  • Optional: only used by teams that need multilingual names.
  • Non-disruptive: the default behavior remains unchanged.
  • Technically low-risk: uses the existing ir.translation framework.
  • Globally inclusive: supporting international teams and official documentation standards.


Strategic Benefit for Odoo

This enhancement aligns with Odoo's vision to serve a global audience with flexible, localized features. It would:

  • Increase adoption among companies with multilingual teams.
  • Remove a major limitation in Odoo’s otherwise excellent HR/CRM system.
  • Further showcase Odoo's commitment to inclusivity and localization leadership.

We are confident that this simple improvement will bring immediate value to many users, and we’d be happy to provide test cases or support if needed.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to seeing this enhancement in a future release.

Warm regards,

Mohd Imran

Contact: +91 88402 05187

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