They won't necessarily know, but the consequences can be really, really shitty if you get flagged (correctly or incorrectly) for violating a real name policy.

They won't necessarily know, but the consequences can be really, really shitty if you get flagged (correctly or incorrectly) for violating a real name policy. Check out this blog post: https://stilgherrian.com/only-one-name/right-google-you-stupid-cunts-this-is-simply-not-on https://stilgherrian.com/only-one-name/right-google-you-stup... Australian guy has the full, legal name "Stilgherrian." Google+ eventually flags his account has having a fake name, and suspends him. Now, imagine you have an uncommon name, and you've been using Facebook Connect to log into a bunch of sites. One day, your account gets suspended. Not only have you lost access to your social connections, but you've also been locked out of those third party sites. Because Facebook didn't think your name was "real" enough. That sucks for you, and it sucks for the businesses you were Connecting with. If it was your real name, you may be able to provide passport scans and other documents to recover your account. If it was a pseudonym, you may be completely locked out. It's also really, really fucking hard to make assumptions about what constitutes a name, unless you only want to do business with Westerners: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b... It's far easier, and more respectful, to give people the agency to determine what they should be called, and be done with it.