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When your last name is Null, nothing works

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Re: When your last name is Null, nothing works

#151

Post by gorfian_robot »

great_wubwub wrote: post #20
AlotOfReading wrote: post #14

For many years, my mother's proper legal name on her birth certificate was the empty string. This wasn't usually a problem before computers as she'd go by a given name instead, even on government paperwork. She started having issues with systems being unable to process her information in the late 90s and early 2000s. Background checks would fail, passports couldn't be issued, and so on. She eventually had it changed,…

There must be an interesting backstory here. Did her parents deliberately not name her? Did they forget?

royalty?

Re: When your last name is Null, nothing works

#152

Post by genewitch »

kstrauser wrote: post #130
genewitch wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is now my go to story about name nonsense for a while.

I think it's kind of hilarious even though it's an expensive pain in the neck. There's nothing we can do to make it go away on its own, so we might as well find the humor in it.

i have a tangential story that i wonder how many entropy i'll leak telling it.

My youngest, when he was born, was unable to get a birth certificate, and was listed as some last name that isn't the mom's or mine (it's because we couldn't track down her 15 year estranged "husband" and louisiana law is... French.) I had to do a paternity test, but that's it, other than hiring a lawyer. The lawyer pushed everything through. I don't "rightfully" own my last name (and i was the last one in the world, damnit!), so we told the lawyer to tell the state we wanted the mom's last name. It has much more known history to her and grandma, etc. I'm the only one in my tree, except the kid.

anyhow the state said "NOPE, DAD'S LAST NAME" so now the kid, instead of being burdened with a last name that looks like a cat fell on your keyboard, has my last name, which is two words.

which is apparently not fixed after me being around for 45 years, and my dad for like 20 years before that in the US.

It seems like this is relatively critical stuff, you know? it can interfere with bank accounts, school financial support, taxes, retirement, and you won't know until you hit each obstacle.

Re: When your last name is Null, nothing works

#153

Post by decimalenough »

kccqzy wrote: post #143
dan_quixote wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is Korean. The anglicized version of Korean given names always has a space in it. This makes for a few kinds of broken naming schemes - like removing the space or the second half of the given name becomes the middle name, or the second half of the given name just truncated entirely.

In Singapore given names can have more than one space and may not be a substring of the full name. The first prime minister has the full name "Harry Lee Kuan Yew" where Lee is his family name and "Harry Kuan Yew" is his given name. (Later in life he dropped "Harry" from his name.)

To be more precise, many Singaporean Chinese names are formatted as WESTERN_NAME SURNAME CHINESE_FIRSTNAME_1 CHINESE_FIRSTNAME_PART2. The WESTERN_NAME may or may not be a legal name (AFAIK for Lee Kuan Yew it never was), and to further complicate things it's not unknown for the Chinese name to be duplicated in its dialect and Mandarin readings, leading to "Harry, Lee Kuan Yew (Li Guangyao)".

Combine this with Anglocentric IT systems, and I'm sure Mr Lee (RIP) gets a lot of spam addressed to "Mr Yew".

Re: When your last name is Null, nothing works

#154

Post by decimalenough »

kstrauser wrote: post #77
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, as someone with two middle names. Both scenarios are very common.

I can beat this. My wife's maiden name was in the form "Jane Angela Smith". When we got married, she changed it to "Jane Smith Jones", first name Jane, middle name Smith, last name Jones. Someone at the Social Security Administration entered it into their database as first name "Jane", no middle name, last name "Smith Jones". Now, for fun, no one noticed this for about 25 years. Her Social Security card says "Jane Sm…

The father of an acquaintance of mine, still a child at the time, migrated from Spain to Argentina with his uncle. On arrival, the uncle was asked for his name. "Guzman y Gomez", he replied, meaning himself (Guzman) and his nephew (Gomez).

End result: both father, uncle and all their offspring now have "Guzman y Gomez" as their last name.

(Yes, this is a pseudonym. No burrito for you.)

Re: When your last name is Null, nothing works

#156

Post by kstrauser »

genewitch wrote: post #152
kstrauser wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's kind of hilarious even though it's an expensive pain in the neck. There's nothing we can do to make it go away on its own, so we might as well find the humor in it.

i have a tangential story that i wonder how many entropy i'll leak telling it. My youngest, when he was born, was unable to get a birth certificate, and was listed as some last name that isn't the mom's or mine (it's because we couldn't track down her 15 year estranged "husband" and louisiana law is... French.) I had to do a paternity test, but that's it, other than hiring a lawyer. The lawyer pushed everything throu…

I am so sympathetic. It shouldn't be that hard, huh?

Re: When your last name is Null, nothing works

#157

Post by zabzonk »

genewitch wrote: post #114
sepositus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A database had associated the word “null” with his personal information and citations were sent to Tartaro, who lives in Los Angeles. I'm not the biggest expert on databases, although I've worked with them a bit, but how does this occur in the first place? Usually, associations are done with primary/foreign keys. What database would allow null in that case?

Wait, you're telling me "NULL" is not equal to NULL?

no value is equal to NULL, including NULL

Re: When your last name is Null, nothing works

#158

Post by niccl »

swores wrote: post #108
femto wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets to the point where you don't have to click the link. You just think "Oh, #327 again." Maybe xkcd needs its own url scheme, something like: xkcd://327 Edit: Written 8 years ago: https://github.com/biappi/XKCDUrlScheme

A lot of hassle to save two characters compared to a simple xkcd.com/327 :P

yeah, but _lots_ of style points!

Re: When your last name is Null, nothing works

#159

Post by SoftTalker »

juujian wrote: post #51
DC-3 wrote: post #16

I have my own mildly amusing story of breaking systems with my name. I have a twin with the same first initial. Any time we had to use a system at school which constructed usernames from some combination of first initial, surname, and date of birth, only one account would be provisioned between the two of us. It became almost a ritual in the first term of the school year for us to make a visit to IT Support and reque…

Meanwhile, friend of mine's last name was Li, and IDs were first initial + last name + # Her number had three digits. I'm guessing it's the birthday that really messed the system up though?

Very common last name for Chinese and places like universities usually don't ever re-issue a username. So the "first-initial + last name + number" approach can get into triple digits easily.

Re: When your last name is Null, nothing works

#160

Post by rabiescow »

bustling-noose wrote: post #140

humans should come with a big UUID that is generated at a central database to keep out duplicate and then just a name without any last name for social connections. this would also solve discrimination on many levels. would be a nightmare for privacy and tracking but we are all being tracked anyway.

the CIA/NSA wet dream... We're not supposed to make it easier for them to control and target us...
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