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The government ate my name

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Re: The government ate my name

#41

Post by QuantumNomad_ »

ninalanyon wrote: post #3
c0balt wrote: post #2

Interesting article, I've had some similar (though significantly less severe) experiences with having ä and ß in my names, it seems many U. S. companies are just unwilling/incapable of going beyond ASCII. The government being this sloppy at getting accents right is surprising, I would expect them to value accuracy and a clean paper trail when handling names. http://archive.today/5h4v2

> The government being this sloppy at getting accents right is surprising, I would expect them to value accuracy That tells me you're German, I didn't even need to see the ä and ß. Even in the UK I encounter websites that won't accept my Norwegian address because it begins with Å. English speaking countries generally are pretty bad at this sort of thing.

Just because we have æ, ø, å here in Norway doesn’t mean that we’re much better at handling “weird” characters from other countries than the English speaking countries are.

My Spanish girlfriend has an ñ in her last name, and as does our son. To the people here in Norway, I just tell them to put a plain n when typing the last name. It’s easier to just go with that than to try and get people to understand how to type ñ on the keyboard (even though our computers can do it), and to avoid extra back and forth with people who have systems that don’t handle it.

Likewise, when I’m in Spain I don’t bother to say that my last name has ø in it. I don’t even bother to rewrite the o in my last name as oe. I just put it as o.

The only situation where I put it as oe is indirectly when an airline converts ø to oe on my airline ticket, or where the airline system doesn’t handle ø and I put it as oe for them when making the booking. To me my name looks worse with oe in it, and seems harder to pronounce for people if I write it as having oe in it than just putting it as o.

Re: The government ate my name

#42

Post by palmotea »

kstrauser wrote: post #35
dustincoates wrote: post #12

Moving to a country that doesn't speak English has taught me just how many pronunciations of my last name there are. It's never really bothered me, though, and 90% of the time I'll introduce myself with the "wrong" one. It's easier for everyone.

I grew up in the US and didn't realize for quite a few years that most people pronounce my last name differently than my family does. After a while I decided that they were right, and just rolled with it. Our pronunciation is closer to the original spelling we see in old genealogy docs. I have no idea why they changed it. Maybe universal literacy wasn't such a thing back then. "What's your last name?" "Suchandsuch."…

> I grew up in the US and didn't realize for quite a few years that most people pronounce my last name differently than my family does. After a while I decided that they were right, and just rolled with it.

I technically mispronounce my own name, and always have. Same thing happened, just a generation or two up.

Re: The government ate my name

#43

Post by dale_glass »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

There's an analogous problem for Russians, and presumably folks from other Slavic-language countries. Our last names are gendered; if Ivan Kuznetsov marries Elena, her last name becomes Kuznetsova. (And their children would have gendered last names, too - little Borya Kuznetsov and little Masha Kuznetsova.) So Russian families who move to America have a choice - either deal with people and systems who assume that mar…

This sometimes also causes problems for the authorities themselves for a change.

I recall some TV program long ago mentioning the police had trouble with Russians because sometimes they think there's a whole gang and it's really just one guy whose name got corrupted in 5 different ways.

Depending on the Russian name and the local language there can be many ways to screw things up. Like Elena might get written down as Helen somewhere and Lena somewhere else. And that's just for viable normal names.

Re: The government ate my name

#44

Post by QuantumNomad_ »

db48x wrote: post #28
comrade1234 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh that makes sense. ASCII is 7-bit. so they could be depending on old 7-bit databases.

No, they can only use what shows up on the keyboard. Internally the software is a vast mix of systems that in practice can probably handle unicode just fine by now. It's just that the people can't type any of those characters.

Option plus u on US English keyboard on macOS gives you the umlaut, and then hit u again and you have ü.

But I wouldn’t bother memorising that and every other possible way that the other person has to press the keys depending on their keyboard layout and operating system. I’d just tell people to put u instead.

Re: The government ate my name

#45

Post by Asooka »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

There's an analogous problem for Russians, and presumably folks from other Slavic-language countries. Our last names are gendered; if Ivan Kuznetsov marries Elena, her last name becomes Kuznetsova. (And their children would have gendered last names, too - little Borya Kuznetsov and little Masha Kuznetsova.) So Russian families who move to America have a choice - either deal with people and systems who assume that mar…

That's a problem within the EU already, no need to travel across the globe. A Bulgarian family moving to Germany would face that exact problem. I hope we can eventually lobby the EU to recognise and allow gendered surnames across the Union, since it is part of our language and culture.

Re: The government ate my name

#46

Post by QuantumNomad_ »

bombcar wrote: post #33
pavel_lishin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I'm trying to figure out how one would write out Matthew in Cyrillic, which has two phonemes that are as much of a nightmare for Russian-speakers as "ы" and "р" are for English-speakers. "Мэтью", maybe?

Do you go with the phonetic option, or do you just use the Cyrillic for the name of the writer of the Gospel? (It's a more general question, too, is John Juan when he's in Mexico?)

> is John Juan when he's in Mexico?

For the biblical Jesus, the situation is even worse. His name was probably originally יֵשׁוּעַ, and should therefore have been Yeshua to us users of the modern day Latin alphabet. But instead his name was adapted to Greek linguistic conventions as Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs), and from there transliterated into Jesus.

Re: The government ate my name

#47

Post by inopinatus »

A few years ago I was unable to register a new Australian company via the automated systems because one of our directors has a hyphenated middle name and the various agencies concerned normalised this in differing ways, leading to rejection at a validation step. Resolving this turned a process of a few minutes into a multi-week telephonic saga.

I subsequently learned that many folks faced with the same problem simply didn’t bother and instead left intentionally erroneous/incomplete (but consistent, and thereby validating) data in the registers.

Re: The government ate my name

#48

Post by MisterTea »

comrade1234 wrote: post #4
c0balt wrote: post #2

Interesting article, I've had some similar (though significantly less severe) experiences with having ä and ß in my names, it seems many U. S. companies are just unwilling/incapable of going beyond ASCII. The government being this sloppy at getting accents right is surprising, I would expect them to value accuracy and a clean paper trail when handling names. http://archive.today/5h4v2

The USA government can't even handle ü. I was filling out a simple form to replace my damaged passport. I live in Zürich but it couldn't handle the umlaut. I never know what to do in this situation - do I use 'ue' instead, which is most common in Europe, or do I just use 'u' which is wrong but usually works in America. I didn't even bother checking with 'ue' and just went with 'u' Ü isn't even a special character or…

> Is their database a 7-bit database?

Ascii is 7 bits. What people think of as 8-bit ASCII is actually code page 437, the alternate characters added to the PC BIOS in the original IBM PC. Like UTF-8 it uses the most significant bit in a 1 byte ASCII char to determine if it should use a character from ASCII if 0 or the extended 437 characters which includes ü if 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437

Re: The government ate my name

#49

Post by stockresearcher »

kstrauser wrote: post #31

Just taking this opportunity to vent. When my wife and I married, she changed her name to [Her First Name] [Her Maiden Name] [My Last Name], like from First: Jane Middle: Ann Last: Smith to First: Jane Middle: Smith Last: Mylastname All was well and good until very recently when I was at the DMV with her and we were renewing her drivers license. We found out then that the person entering her name change form at the S…

> The correct long term answer is that we have to have her name changed legally

Are you sure?

SSA has administrative offices that deal with data errors. Generally in a GSA high rise in a big city. NOT the offices where you go to get benefits.

Someone doing data entry for the SSA fat fingered some info about me back when I was born, and I only found out in the 2010s thanks to the IRS rejecting a tax filing (I had to pay a 50 cent late fee!!!).

Went in-person to their office in the Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago and the lady spent a few minutes examining documents, typed on her computer for about 20 seconds, and that was that. All fixed.

Re: The government ate my name

#50

Post by buu700 »

Reminds me of an old friend Oleshargegilolodeleroi* from Kenya who was renamed to "Siloma Kerore" on his US visa.

*: Not 100% sure I'm spelling that correctly. Grok suggests that Oleshargegilgilololdeleroi may be more plausible.

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