4 ms·

A Polish relative of mine used to just gave an arbitrary substitute name (e.g. "Dave Smith") for restaurant reservations, because even if they could write his l

A Polish relative of mine used to just gave an arbitrary substitute name (e.g. "Dave Smith") for restaurant reservations, because even if they could write his last name, they wouldn't be able to pronounce it. My sibling has a name that has an accent, and just enters it with the plain letter most of the time. The name was once rare and "ethnic", but became popular a generation later so people know how to pronounce it regardless. Our parents gave us two middle names, wanting to preserve our grandmothers' surnames, but also in the spirit of "Bobby Tables", having ambivalent feelings about the computerization of society tending towards inflexibility. According to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_customs_of_Hispanic_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_customs_of_Hispanic_Ame... ...misunderstanding of naming customs in the US has actually led to significant consequences due to last names not matching on legal documents. I remember reading a story about how there are people in China whose name incorporates a character that is obscure enough, the authorities are trying to eliminate it and get them to change their name. If I recall correctly, Chinese has a particular problem with characters that are part of names that have been around forever, but are no longer used for ordinary writing.

em-bee 5y ago
a friend of mine has that problem. his company is owned by his wife because his name can't appear in legal documents and he refuses to change it. his approach was that he petitioned unicode to include that character. i don't think the authorities are actively trying to eliminate those characters but simply don't want to go through the effort to track down and have those characters added to the standard. the process takes years and in the mean time you have to live with the inconvenience. also most of the people faced with the problem would not even know how.
- sugarkjube 5y ago
  > his name can't appear in legal documents maybe has the benefit that he also can't receive speeding tickets? > his approach was that he petitioned unicode to include that character. Sounds like the right approach (although not the easiest). if unicode can include thousands of smileys, the least they can do is include actual characters used in people names.
pezezin 5y ago
I understand your troubles, I'm from Spain so I have two family names and my given name has an accent. Now that I'm living in Japan, it's an endless source of fun. Regarding Chinese names and uncommon characters, Japan has the same problem. It's specially problematic for place names, with some kanji used to write the name of a single place in the whole country! I used to write in a place with such an obscure kanji that I wouldn't type it on my Linux PC. It's also difficult for people moving to the other country, with some characters existing in one country but not in the other. I have a Chinese coworker who needs to write his name in katakana because his characters don't exist in Japanese.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  Because nearly everything in the US shoehorns things into three boxes, virtually every place my name is recorded on something important is different. I could've been consistent in using two or three out of four, but when I was younger I was intimidated by forms that say you must enter your "full legal name", so I would, and they would mangle it unpredictably. Checking account, credit card, drivers license, and property deed, each one different. Well, in fact, my social security card and my birth certificate don't match, so I was doomed from the start. It gives me some sympathy for places that try to regulate names to avoid parents doing something too goofy. I sometimes wonder if there will come a day when all the databases will stop allowing discrepancies, and it won't matter to the powers that be, because it's such a tiny percentage of the population that becomes "unpersons".
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  Railroad signs transcribe place names in hiragana. I imagine a place name should be recognizable in hiragana form.
  - pezezin 5y ago
    This was in the inaka, with the closest train station 40 km away.
deleted 5y ago
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em-bee 5y ago

a friend of mine has that problem. his company is owned by his wife because his name can't appear in legal documents and he refuses to change it. his approach was that he petitioned unicode to include that character. i don't think the authorities are actively trying to eliminate those characters but simply don't want to go through the effort to track down and have those characters added to the standard. the process takes years and in the mean time you have to live with the inconvenience. also most of the people faced with the problem would not even know how.

sugarkjube 5y ago
> his name can't appear in legal documents maybe has the benefit that he also can't receive speeding tickets? > his approach was that he petitioned unicode to include that character. Sounds like the right approach (although not the easiest). if unicode can include thousands of smileys, the least they can do is include actual characters used in people names.

pezezin 5y ago

I understand your troubles, I'm from Spain so I have two family names and my given name has an accent. Now that I'm living in Japan, it's an endless source of fun. Regarding Chinese names and uncommon characters, Japan has the same problem. It's specially problematic for place names, with some kanji used to write the name of a single place in the whole country! I used to write in a place with such an obscure kanji that I wouldn't type it on my Linux PC. It's also difficult for people moving to the other country, with some characters existing in one country but not in the other. I have a Chinese coworker who needs to write his name in katakana because his characters don't exist in Japanese.

perl4ever 5y ago
Because nearly everything in the US shoehorns things into three boxes, virtually every place my name is recorded on something important is different. I could've been consistent in using two or three out of four, but when I was younger I was intimidated by forms that say you must enter your "full legal name", so I would, and they would mangle it unpredictably. Checking account, credit card, drivers license, and property deed, each one different. Well, in fact, my social security card and my birth certificate don't match, so I was doomed from the start. It gives me some sympathy for places that try to regulate names to avoid parents doing something too goofy. I sometimes wonder if there will come a day when all the databases will stop allowing discrepancies, and it won't matter to the powers that be, because it's such a tiny percentage of the population that becomes "unpersons".
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
Railroad signs transcribe place names in hiragana. I imagine a place name should be recognizable in hiragana form.
- pezezin 5y ago
  This was in the inaka, with the closest train station 40 km away.

deleted 5y ago

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