Hello,
name:en is used in the Thailand tagging for the name on how you would use it in witten/spoken English when mentioning that element.
So you might visit the “Science Centre for Education” in Sukhumvit “Road”, not Sun Witthayasat Phuea Kansueksa in Thanon Sukhumvit.
In Thailand, some “category” is often part of the name as printed on the sign, like in many other countries as well. We do not transliterate that, but translate into English. The “real basename” must be somehow transliterated from Thai script into the latin Alphabet. For this we use the RTGS.
There are as always and in all languages exceptions to the rule. We do not translate some words at all, because they have a specific meaning in Thailand or are tightly coupled with the name. So the museum above is opposite “Soi 61”. And as a tourist you probably visit “Wat Pho” and not the Pho temple. For such tightly coupled names you can cross-check Wikipedia, as it is handled there the same way (for English wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Pho
Similar other facilites like schools, restaurants, hotels, government offifces, plice station and so on.
It is not “Rongphayaban Songsoem Sukkhaphap Tambon”, it is “Subdistrict Health Promoting Hospital”.
All clearly English, and not a transliteration. If for some reasons the transliterated name is important, we can add it in name:th-latn. “Maenam Ping” instead of Ping River" as mentioned above.
There are certainly some tagging inconsistencies in Thailand. Dave spotted some. If you go out for sight-seeing in Chiang MAi, you probably go with “Ping River Cruise” to see the Rambo filming location, at is “River”. It is also railway bridge over River Khwae, that tourists visit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Khwae%20Yai%20River
So name:en is in my opinion the correct on, because English is used for the extended naming words.
int_name is decribed in the Wiki as the name internationally used for a place (in case it differs from the locally used name).
I can only think of Krung Thep here, which all call Bangkok in international context.
the “int_name” is problematic- based on what would you decide what is an international language? Let’s use the numbers of international tourists in Thailand. Majority are Chinese, so int_name should be acutally Chinese, right?
It fails in a similar way than mixing languages in the name tag (like using parantheses).
The only way to have a neutral database is to have individual name-tags and allow the renderer to combine them in a way suitable for the desired target audience.
The Greek community used to follow this tagging style. Back in old times, when there was no other bi-lingual rendering available, I did not only create the bi-lingual Thaimap, but had also bi-lingual renderings on request of the local communities. I retired renderings for Iran and Greece in Jan-2012.
The style, as of 2010-08-17 is still availabe and used the same “name:en” we also have in Thailand:
“case when (tags ? ‘name:en’) then tags->‘name:en’ else name end AS name,”
https://downloads.osm-tools.org/bilingual/