6 ms·

Definitely read https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

Definitely read https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... if you haven't yet. Then think about what are the requirements your system needs when it comes to names. Does the app need to know what a user's name is at all or is a username enough? Does it need to distinguish the family part of their name for anything? A thing I think is the most general is to just have a Full Name field (min length 1 and either John Doe or something cute as default) And a Nickname or Display Name field if your app needs to show something on screen.

neoCrimeLabs 3y ago
Thank you for reminding me of this article! More people designing applications need to read it.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  And read this, you can learn a lot about names from it: https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/sevis-help-hub/sevis-basics/system-data-entry-standards/name-standards https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/sevis-help-hub/sevis-basics...
  - neoCrimeLabs 3y ago
    This was also educational, thank you!
  - sethammons 3y ago
    > No hyphens, apostrophes, or commas; except in the Preferred Name field But my passport and drivers license both show my middle names hyphenated :(
nottheengineer 3y ago
> That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right? That made me laugh out loud. It's a great reminder why being conscious of the assumptions you make is an important part of development and one that LLMs can't really do.
o11c 3y ago
There are 4 main name forms that I often see: * Full name (John Smith) * Index name (Smith, John) - mostly for meatspace compatibility. * Preferred name (John Smith) - used in lists with other people's names * Personal name (John) - used in direct communications
- djur 3y ago
  Index vs. preferred name can get a bit wonky. I used to work on software that had a lot of attendee/speaker list functionality. Different types of customer had strong expectations about how names should be displayed and ordered, sometimes even in different contexts (attendees might be listed by last name but speakers by first, etc.). We had medical conferences where everybody would be listed as "Dr. Fredrica Bloggs, MD" but the sort order would be by last name. And that was just for English-speaking customers.
  - kyleee 3y ago
    it is really something to be dealt with via locale settings but the lack of standardized data underlying what the locale logic would display really throws a wrench in things
- jltsiren 3y ago
  The name used in direct communications can depend on the level of formality and on the context. For example, John / Mr. Smith / Dr. Smith. Then there is the difference between the "full" name and the legal full name, with all names spelled out. The latter is sometimes necessary, but it can be awkward or inappropriate to use it in most places that expect a full name.
croes 3y ago
Is there an article showing a solution because listing problems is the easy part? And maybe it's just me but >because names are central to our identities, virtually by definition. isn't true, my name is for the outside world, inside I'm just I, that's my identity.
- nhinck2 3y ago
  There is no "a solution" and never will be. Design your solution to be maximally relevant to your scenario and accept that it can't be perfect.
- sundarurfriend 3y ago
  In this case, "listing problems" - as you dismissively call it - takes a lot of care and effort, the article is a distillation of experience and knowledge that very few possess. It's up to you to use this understanding of the problem space to decide which aspects you're willing to trade off. The article's job is to help people make these tradeoffs consciously, instead of designing based on simplistic assumptions made in ignorance.
- brigandish 3y ago
  You don't refer to yourself in private by your own name?
  - sneak 3y ago
    I had no part in choosing any of the names assigned to me at birth; I don't use them and don't particularly feel any attachment to them.
  - croes 3y ago
    No, I refer to myself as I. Without others I would never use my name.
  - Toutouxc 3y ago
    Do you? I only say my own name when I’m introducing myself to someone.
vintermann 3y ago
It's not just programmers. Plenty of genealogists, do things like automatically give a wife their husband's (male!) patronym. Even though they see it doesn't work that way in the sources, they seem to feel that it "should" work that way.
- Delk 3y ago
  To be fair, most of the stuff in "falsehoods programmers believe about $concept" lists are really falsehoods almost everyone believes. Software is just one of the places where the limits of those implicit beliefs might actually become apparent. Most people never need to think about the details of how names might work in a different culture across the world, let alone work that into any kind of a rule-based mechanism or a rigid information model. If some random person working at a construction site in Europe or the US has no idea that first names and last names aren't a universal thing, that has exactly zero direct effect on anything. In most cases that's probably even true of lawyers or other high-level white collar work. I'm actually inclined to believe lots of programmers know more about e.g. time [1] than a non-programmer Joe Random does on average, exactly because software developers may actually end up coming across at least some of those issues. [1] e.g. https://gist.github.com/timvisee/fcda9bbdff88d45cc9061606b4b923ca https://gist.github.com/timvisee/fcda9bbdff88d45cc9061606b4b...
- fer 3y ago
  In France married women, if they let their guard down, will be given their husband's last name as "nom d'usage" upon almost any sign-up paperwork, without being asked, at least in my experience. Nom d'usage technically has no legal value, it's just a last name you might want to be addressed as, normally that of your husband but it can be a pen name and whatever. It's optional, and technically only at the request of the relevant person. Men can have nom d'usage too (égalité, after all). Still, immigration offices, banks, insurances... they often slap the husband's last name if that field is left empty, just because. Why would you want something else, right? She probably forgot! We started crossing those fields to make it clear she doesn't want a nom d'usage.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
dontupvoteme 3y ago
Very interesting however >People have exactly one canonical full name. What is on your passport then?
- westernpopular 3y ago
  I can tell you that in my passport, my name appears in two different places and it's spelled differently been them. Also, a lot of people in the world don't have passports.
  - noirbot 3y ago
    I can also tell you that the passport office doesn't check anything very well, at least in the US, as my name on my passport doesn't actually match the name on my birth cert or SSN paperwork. I guess I mis-wrote it when I filled it out originally, but now I have to deal with how to get it fixed. For renewals, they only have a "my name changed" field, not a "you messed it up", so I've been ineffective at correcting the issue for years now.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- po 3y ago
  depends... which passport are you asking about?
- jmopp 3y ago
  The magician Teller just has 'Teller' on his passport, and if you refer to 'Raymond Joseph Teller', people won't know who you're referring to.
- andreareina 3y ago
  Dual citizenship frequently results in different names in different passports.
  - wmeddie 3y ago
    Exactly. This is the case for my children.
danbruc 3y ago
This list would have been so much better with examples or a short explanation how or why the assumptions break in case it is not obvious. The author offers examples on demand [1] but while I would be interested to know them, it seems not important enough to bother the author. Maybe the author sees this comment and has some time to spare, then it could benefit everyone and not just one person asking. [1] If you need examples of real names which disprove any of the above commonly held misconceptions, I will happily introduce you to several.
- brigandish 3y ago
  I live in Japan (as does Kalzameus), my name will regularly cause problems in computer systems. In fact, quite often I'm not using my name but what I am called in Japanese, and even then it will often fail. Number 1 problem - not enough characters, because most Japanese people only use a few characters for their entire name, don't have middle names, and don't have spaces in their names. And that's just for starters. Should I use what I consider to be my name, my full name, the name on my passport or the name on my residence card…? It's just not that hard to find problems with name inputs.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    Do you have to enter your name in Romaji or Katakana in Japanese sites?
    - brigandish 3y ago
      It depends but it's usually going to be katakana. Sometimes it would specify what's written on your passport, or residence card. I've even heard talk of using half-width characters, which, luckily, I've not had the misfortune to use yet.
- kelnos 3y ago
  Someone else decided to write a follow-up with examples: https://shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names-with-examples/ https://shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/falsehoods-programmers...

neoCrimeLabs 3y ago

Thank you for reminding me of this article! More people designing applications need to read it.

qingcharles 3y ago
And read this, you can learn a lot about names from it: https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/sevis-help-hub/sevis-basics/system-data-entry-standards/name-standards https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/sevis-help-hub/sevis-basics...
- neoCrimeLabs 3y ago
  This was also educational, thank you!
- sethammons 3y ago
  > No hyphens, apostrophes, or commas; except in the Preferred Name field But my passport and drivers license both show my middle names hyphenated :(

nottheengineer 3y ago

> That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right? That made me laugh out loud. It's a great reminder why being conscious of the assumptions you make is an important part of development and one that LLMs can't really do.

o11c 3y ago

There are 4 main name forms that I often see: * Full name (John Smith) * Index name (Smith, John) - mostly for meatspace compatibility. * Preferred name (John Smith) - used in lists with other people's names * Personal name (John) - used in direct communications

djur 3y ago
Index vs. preferred name can get a bit wonky. I used to work on software that had a lot of attendee/speaker list functionality. Different types of customer had strong expectations about how names should be displayed and ordered, sometimes even in different contexts (attendees might be listed by last name but speakers by first, etc.). We had medical conferences where everybody would be listed as "Dr. Fredrica Bloggs, MD" but the sort order would be by last name. And that was just for English-speaking customers.
- kyleee 3y ago
  it is really something to be dealt with via locale settings but the lack of standardized data underlying what the locale logic would display really throws a wrench in things
jltsiren 3y ago
The name used in direct communications can depend on the level of formality and on the context. For example, John / Mr. Smith / Dr. Smith. Then there is the difference between the "full" name and the legal full name, with all names spelled out. The latter is sometimes necessary, but it can be awkward or inappropriate to use it in most places that expect a full name.

croes 3y ago

Is there an article showing a solution because listing problems is the easy part? And maybe it's just me but >because names are central to our identities, virtually by definition. isn't true, my name is for the outside world, inside I'm just I, that's my identity.

nhinck2 3y ago
There is no "a solution" and never will be. Design your solution to be maximally relevant to your scenario and accept that it can't be perfect.
sundarurfriend 3y ago
In this case, "listing problems" - as you dismissively call it - takes a lot of care and effort, the article is a distillation of experience and knowledge that very few possess. It's up to you to use this understanding of the problem space to decide which aspects you're willing to trade off. The article's job is to help people make these tradeoffs consciously, instead of designing based on simplistic assumptions made in ignorance.
brigandish 3y ago
You don't refer to yourself in private by your own name?
- sneak 3y ago
  I had no part in choosing any of the names assigned to me at birth; I don't use them and don't particularly feel any attachment to them.
- croes 3y ago
  No, I refer to myself as I. Without others I would never use my name.
- Toutouxc 3y ago
  Do you? I only say my own name when I’m introducing myself to someone.

vintermann 3y ago

It's not just programmers. Plenty of genealogists, do things like automatically give a wife their husband's (male!) patronym. Even though they see it doesn't work that way in the sources, they seem to feel that it "should" work that way.

Delk 3y ago
To be fair, most of the stuff in "falsehoods programmers believe about $concept" lists are really falsehoods almost everyone believes. Software is just one of the places where the limits of those implicit beliefs might actually become apparent. Most people never need to think about the details of how names might work in a different culture across the world, let alone work that into any kind of a rule-based mechanism or a rigid information model. If some random person working at a construction site in Europe or the US has no idea that first names and last names aren't a universal thing, that has exactly zero direct effect on anything. In most cases that's probably even true of lawyers or other high-level white collar work. I'm actually inclined to believe lots of programmers know more about e.g. time [1] than a non-programmer Joe Random does on average, exactly because software developers may actually end up coming across at least some of those issues. [1] e.g. https://gist.github.com/timvisee/fcda9bbdff88d45cc9061606b4b923ca https://gist.github.com/timvisee/fcda9bbdff88d45cc9061606b4b...
fer 3y ago
In France married women, if they let their guard down, will be given their husband's last name as "nom d'usage" upon almost any sign-up paperwork, without being asked, at least in my experience. Nom d'usage technically has no legal value, it's just a last name you might want to be addressed as, normally that of your husband but it can be a pen name and whatever. It's optional, and technically only at the request of the relevant person. Men can have nom d'usage too (égalité, after all). Still, immigration offices, banks, insurances... they often slap the husband's last name if that field is left empty, just because. Why would you want something else, right? She probably forgot! We started crossing those fields to make it clear she doesn't want a nom d'usage.
- makeitdouble 3y ago

dontupvoteme 3y ago

Very interesting however >People have exactly one canonical full name. What is on your passport then?

westernpopular 3y ago
I can tell you that in my passport, my name appears in two different places and it's spelled differently been them. Also, a lot of people in the world don't have passports.
- noirbot 3y ago
  I can also tell you that the passport office doesn't check anything very well, at least in the US, as my name on my passport doesn't actually match the name on my birth cert or SSN paperwork. I guess I mis-wrote it when I filled it out originally, but now I have to deal with how to get it fixed. For renewals, they only have a "my name changed" field, not a "you messed it up", so I've been ineffective at correcting the issue for years now.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
po 3y ago
depends... which passport are you asking about?
jmopp 3y ago
The magician Teller just has 'Teller' on his passport, and if you refer to 'Raymond Joseph Teller', people won't know who you're referring to.
andreareina 3y ago
Dual citizenship frequently results in different names in different passports.
- wmeddie 3y ago
  Exactly. This is the case for my children.

danbruc 3y ago

This list would have been so much better with examples or a short explanation how or why the assumptions break in case it is not obvious. The author offers examples on demand [1] but while I would be interested to know them, it seems not important enough to bother the author. Maybe the author sees this comment and has some time to spare, then it could benefit everyone and not just one person asking. [1] If you need examples of real names which disprove any of the above commonly held misconceptions, I will happily introduce you to several.

brigandish 3y ago
I live in Japan (as does Kalzameus), my name will regularly cause problems in computer systems. In fact, quite often I'm not using my name but what I am called in Japanese, and even then it will often fail. Number 1 problem - not enough characters, because most Japanese people only use a few characters for their entire name, don't have middle names, and don't have spaces in their names. And that's just for starters. Should I use what I consider to be my name, my full name, the name on my passport or the name on my residence card…? It's just not that hard to find problems with name inputs.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Do you have to enter your name in Romaji or Katakana in Japanese sites?
  - brigandish 3y ago
    It depends but it's usually going to be katakana. Sometimes it would specify what's written on your passport, or residence card. I've even heard talk of using half-width characters, which, luckily, I've not had the misfortune to use yet.
kelnos 3y ago
Someone else decided to write a follow-up with examples: https://shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names-with-examples/ https://shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/falsehoods-programmers...