<story><title>Your name is way too long for your ID</title><url>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/09/12/janice-lokelani-keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NP_Top_Stories+%28National+Post+-+Top+Stories%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mhb</author><text>&lt;i&gt;It never occurred to either of us that a ten character last name with a space in the middle would be problem&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Really? Because a space is commonly used as the delimiter between first, middle and last names. Wouldn&amp;#x27;t you think that, at a minimum, there would be some ambiguity about whether Jones was (one of) her middle name(s) or the first part of her last name?</text></item><item><author>esw</author><text>My wife took my surname when we married, but rather than hyphenate she decided to go with a space.  Although the names are each quite short (e.g. &amp;quot;Jones&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Smith&amp;quot;), this has proven to be a significant challenge for our bank, and even on her drivers license (which compressed her name to JONESSMITH).  It never occurred to either of us that a ten character last name with a space in the middle would be problem to anyone other than people who want to cite her research.</text></item><item><author>grannyg00se</author><text>But should we really worry about the 0.01% outlier who has seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon?&lt;p&gt;More on topic, why should official systems allow for names of arbitrary length?  Obviously your 1800 character preference for last name is not going to fit on all standard forms of identification.  A standards-compliant name should be issued and you can use your preferred name for personal matters.</text></item><item><author>cstross</author><text>See also &amp;quot;Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names&amp;quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kalzumeus.com&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;falsehoods-programmers-b...&lt;/a&gt;  (This falls under point #6)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pavlov</author><text>There are plenty of European family names that have one or more spaces in the middle. Some examples:&lt;p&gt;de la Chapelle&lt;p&gt;von Braun&lt;p&gt;zu Guttenberg&lt;p&gt;af Slestad&lt;p&gt;A computer system that assumes that Wernher von Braun&amp;#x27;s middle name was &amp;quot;von&amp;quot; is ridiculous.</text></comment>
<story><title>Your name is way too long for your ID</title><url>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/09/12/janice-lokelani-keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NP_Top_Stories+%28National+Post+-+Top+Stories%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mhb</author><text>&lt;i&gt;It never occurred to either of us that a ten character last name with a space in the middle would be problem&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Really? Because a space is commonly used as the delimiter between first, middle and last names. Wouldn&amp;#x27;t you think that, at a minimum, there would be some ambiguity about whether Jones was (one of) her middle name(s) or the first part of her last name?</text></item><item><author>esw</author><text>My wife took my surname when we married, but rather than hyphenate she decided to go with a space.  Although the names are each quite short (e.g. &amp;quot;Jones&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Smith&amp;quot;), this has proven to be a significant challenge for our bank, and even on her drivers license (which compressed her name to JONESSMITH).  It never occurred to either of us that a ten character last name with a space in the middle would be problem to anyone other than people who want to cite her research.</text></item><item><author>grannyg00se</author><text>But should we really worry about the 0.01% outlier who has seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon?&lt;p&gt;More on topic, why should official systems allow for names of arbitrary length?  Obviously your 1800 character preference for last name is not going to fit on all standard forms of identification.  A standards-compliant name should be issued and you can use your preferred name for personal matters.</text></item><item><author>cstross</author><text>See also &amp;quot;Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names&amp;quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kalzumeus.com&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;falsehoods-programmers-b...&lt;/a&gt;  (This falls under point #6)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>iaskwhy</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s mine: &amp;quot;[FirstName] [SecondName] e [FirstFamilyName] [SecondFamilyName]&amp;quot;. That article (&amp;quot;e&amp;quot;) in the middle gives me trouble all the time. First time I went to NYC I got asked by the passport guy what that &amp;quot;e&amp;quot; meant. I told him it was just an article connecting the first part of the name to the second. He didn&amp;#x27;t really believe me and started asking if it meant something like Edward. After a couple of minutes trying to explain it&amp;#x27;s not that rare in my country he let me go.</text></comment>