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We have an employee whose last name is Null. He kills our employee lookup (2012)

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Re: We have an employee whose last name is Null. He kills our employee lookup (2012)

#131

Post by jlgreco »

lostlogin wrote: post #130
pjungwir wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a few years my airplane boarding passes said I was PAULA JUNGWIRTH because A is my middle initial. I got a few questions trying to board. I've noticed the last couple years that they print with a space now.

I've never understood why people entering data into a system enter an initial. It's a partial entry. You wouldn't enter a date of birth as 3. On further thought, actually, they do. Then dismiss all the error messages and quit the program to get past the system keeping them in the field waiting for completion. Users seem hell bent on breaking our databases.

I frequently have to enter my first initial and middle name as my "first name". Why? Because that is how it appears in numerous official places, such as my credit card.

The users aren't broken, your database (and your assumptions about names) is.

Re: We have an employee whose last name is Null. He kills our employee lookup (2012)

#132

Post by jonlucc »

njharman wrote: post #127
masklinn wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It means Son, my father has the same name as me, without the Filho part Interesting, that's similar to Junior in the US, but there it generally isn't part of the "official" name, only informal.

Jr. is absolutely part of my official name in the USA. It is the only distinction between my and my father's name. Many forms have a specific spot for suffix.

Are you implying that two people (you and your father) can't have identical names in the US?

Re: We have an employee whose last name is Null. He kills our employee lookup (2012)

#133

Post by speeder »

goodcanadian wrote: post #92
speeder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My name fail to register surprisingly often, even here in Brazil. It is Hélder Maurício Gomes Ferreira Filho Common reasons for failure is being too long and having non ASCII characters, but sometimes it fails for other reasons, for example do not allow me to register without a middle name ( I don't haven't one actually... ), me confused and not knowing how to register Filho ( it is not a family name, neither a surna…

I found your comments on "Filho" interesting. In English, the equivalent is "Junior" with the father sometimes using "Senior." It is not part of your name per se, and thus would not be typed into the name field of a form. However, in places where naming sons after their fathers is common, there is often be an additional drop down box listing (Jr, Sr, I, II, III, and so on).

Oh yeah, these drop boxes piss me off, specially because here in Brazil there is BOTH Junior and Filho... And I am Filho, not Junior.

(also we have "Neto" that means Grandson, it is quite popular, I know a bunch of guys like that, I don't think dro down boxes in other countries will expect that)

Re: We have an employee whose last name is Null. He kills our employee lookup (2012)

#134

Post by jlgreco »

R_Edward wrote: post #107
mjn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that's annoying to me is that governments and employers increasingly believe many of these things, partly because they want to cross-reference names and match canonical forms. My given names in English are Mark Jason, and that's on my birth certificate. In Greek, they're Μάρκος Ιάσονας, which are the equivalents, and that's on my municipal birth records there (registered as a foreign birth at the time of ba…

Growing up, my parents called me by my middle name, as I share a first name with my dad. (I'd rather be an Edward than a Ralph anyway.) When giving my name to someone, I tell them I'm Edward , as telling them I'm R. Edward just sounds pretentious. But if I'm beginning a relationship with a doctor's office or lawyer, or filling in a tax form, it's Ralph E. Lastname, because that's what's on my birth certificate and SS…

This is my situation as well. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the "Redward" equivalent.

To compound the problems caused by this, I switched to using my first name as my primary name around the same time as I switched coast. People on the east coast know me as my middle name, people from the west coast know me as my first name. This can come in handy sometimes as it gives me a very quick indication of where I know somebody from, but gave me a good deal of trouble recently at a west-coast wedding with lots of east-coast people attending... The fact that some of my friends were introducing me to other people with just my last name made it quite... interesting.

Re: We have an employee whose last name is Null. He kills our employee lookup (2012)

#135

Post by munificent »

chiph wrote: post #43

We had a customer with the last name "Echo" who couldn't make a credit card payment. Turns out that the card processor was looking for strings which were common Unix commands and not allowing them.

God, what a terrible idea. That would exclude Man Ray, Sir Thomas More, Murray Head, Tex Avery, Kimiko Date, Rollie Fingers, James Last, and even Steve Jobs!

Re: We have an employee whose last name is Null. He kills our employee lookup (2012)

#136

Post by strlen »

pjungwir wrote: post #128
lostlogin wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite the same, and it does't break things so much as make them rubbish, but try getting a radiology information system to talk to a scanner of some description (CT, MRI etc). GE scanners accept Surname^Name. If someone has a middle name it doesn't display or come across to the scanner, so as to save space (I assume). This is fine until you get someone who has a first name with 2 separate words. I discovered…

For a few years my airplane boarding passes said I was PAULA JUNGWIRTH because A is my middle initial. I got a few questions trying to board. I've noticed the last couple years that they print with a space now.

When I flew Lufthansa, I was granted an honorary Ph.D.

My official name is "Aleksandr Feinberg" -- it's transliterated from Cyrillics (hence the "ks") and Russian version of "Alexander" does not put an e between the d and r -- which Lufthansa decided to print on my boarding pass as Dr. Aleksan Feinberg

Re: We have an employee whose last name is Null. He kills our employee lookup (2012)

#139

Post by kbenson »

R_Edward wrote: post #107
mjn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that's annoying to me is that governments and employers increasingly believe many of these things, partly because they want to cross-reference names and match canonical forms. My given names in English are Mark Jason, and that's on my birth certificate. In Greek, they're Μάρκος Ιάσονας, which are the equivalents, and that's on my municipal birth records there (registered as a foreign birth at the time of ba…

Growing up, my parents called me by my middle name, as I share a first name with my dad. (I'd rather be an Edward than a Ralph anyway.) When giving my name to someone, I tell them I'm Edward , as telling them I'm R. Edward just sounds pretentious. But if I'm beginning a relationship with a doctor's office or lawyer, or filling in a tax form, it's Ralph E. Lastname, because that's what's on my birth certificate and SS…

as telling them I'm R. Edward just sounds pretentious

Not to mention it casts serious doubt as to your organic nature.

Re: We have an employee whose last name is Null. He kills our employee lookup (2012)

#140

Post by auctiontheory »

jonlucc wrote: post #132
njharman wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jr. is absolutely part of my official name in the USA. It is the only distinction between my and my father's name. Many forms have a specific spot for suffix.

Are you implying that two people (you and your father) can't have identical names in the US?

Of course not! That would break the Computer.
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