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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 f

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.

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.