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Having a full combination of first + family name doesn't really help for identification purposes, though: "John Smith" may not be quite as unidentifiable/ambigu

Having a full combination of first + family name doesn't really help for identification purposes, though: "John Smith" may not be quite as unidentifiable/ambiguous as "Mohammed, son of Mohammed, grandson of Mohammed", but it's not too far off it either. In general, websites don't depend on these names for identification; if a site refused to sign me up because I shared a name with another "Smith, John" then I would rightly be irritated. So why do (many) sites insist on collection first and last names separately, as opposed to just a "full name" field that would be used to address me on the site or via email? Is it purely a data collection / advertising / monetization thing?

Iv 7y ago
It is not perfect, far from it, and the reason why so many Americans have second names (After all, USA had to Georges Bush as president) A free form "full name" text could be the solution, but then the problem is forcing a formatting on it so that one person always puts the same thing in this field. Should I include second names? Accents? Is that family name first or second? At least, with clearly labeled fields you are already able to tell Adam Smith from a Smith Adam. Webshops usually are happy with name + current address but there are administrative domains where this is not acceptable.
- philwelch 7y ago
  There are also differences with how surname/given name ordering translates between languages. For example, a Chinese name like Xi Jinping has Xi as the surname and is rendered in that order in both Chinese and English. A Japanese name like Shinzo Abe is rendered in Japanese as Abe Shinzo with Abe as the surname.
raverbashing 7y ago
> sites insist on collection first and last names separately, as opposed to just a "full name" Because that's also a cultural bias from (some) western countries. And even then some countries that "insist" on First/Last name don't have Middle names. You might also want to split First/Last names to display things like Mr. Smith In practice (especially for government purposes), John Smith is not only John Smith, but John Smith born in Day-Month-Year, in City, etc.

Iv 7y ago

It is not perfect, far from it, and the reason why so many Americans have second names (After all, USA had to Georges Bush as president) A free form "full name" text could be the solution, but then the problem is forcing a formatting on it so that one person always puts the same thing in this field. Should I include second names? Accents? Is that family name first or second? At least, with clearly labeled fields you are already able to tell Adam Smith from a Smith Adam. Webshops usually are happy with name + current address but there are administrative domains where this is not acceptable.

philwelch 7y ago
There are also differences with how surname/given name ordering translates between languages. For example, a Chinese name like Xi Jinping has Xi as the surname and is rendered in that order in both Chinese and English. A Japanese name like Shinzo Abe is rendered in Japanese as Abe Shinzo with Abe as the surname.

raverbashing 7y ago

> sites insist on collection first and last names separately, as opposed to just a "full name" Because that's also a cultural bias from (some) western countries. And even then some countries that "insist" on First/Last name don't have Middle names. You might also want to split First/Last names to display things like Mr. Smith In practice (especially for government purposes), John Smith is not only John Smith, but John Smith born in Day-Month-Year, in City, etc.