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The government ate my name

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Re: The government ate my name

#181

Post by ricudis »

cidd wrote: post #25

In Indonesia, many Javanese people traditionally have only one name. When they migrate to countries like Singapore, where a surname is required, they often use their given name as both their first and last name. As a result, you may see names such as Chandra Chandra or Supardi Supardi.

Nowadays the Indonesian law requires at least two words for the person's full name, and the full name is regarded as a single entity no matter how many words it contains. Older generations of Javanese, having only a single name, usually duplicate it - I have seen such duplicate names in official Indonesian documents.

Re: The government ate my name

#182

Post by SoftTalker »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #163
SoftTalker wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese living in the west also will sometimes adopt a western name.

> will sometimes adopt a western name Do you mean first name or family name?

A given name/first name, at least in the cases I directly know.

Re: The government ate my name

#183

Post by someuser2345 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #167
dale_glass wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not even necessarily corruption; we address each other by different names depending on context. To acquaintances, I might be a Pavel; to close friends, I might be Pasha. To my mom, I'm Pavlik. In a business or other more formal setting, I would be Pavel Dmitrievich. I think it's a common complaint when reading Russian novels, non-Russians get confused about who's who because of these types of shifts. And it tota…

To be fair, that can be a problem with English too. The short form of Robert is Bob, the short form of Richard is Dick.

Re: The government ate my name

#184

Post by pavel_lishin »

hiatus wrote: post #177
pavel_lishin wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure can! But that doesn't mean it won't cause you problems. For example, if you're male, and decide to change your name to Sarah, you totally can - but don't be surprised when people assume you're a woman. And there are many countries, of which you are unaware, that do have pretty strict laws about what you are and aren't allowed to name your children. Iceland is the one that springs to mind off the top of my he…

I think you misread my comment? I said: > You can't, in any country I'm aware of, choose absolutely any name you want. Like in Germany can you name your kid "The Holocaust Didn't Happen"? No right?

You're right. I absolutely did misread your comment. That's what I get for trying to read on a single cup of coffee.

Re: The government ate my name

#185

Post by cwmma »

Reading this, it seems like the naturalization process which he changed his name during, doesn't really signal that there was a change of names.

Like normally if you changed your name (in America) you'd have a wedding certificate or a document from the court that you could use to show continuity but instead you're just allowed to put whatever you want on the citizenship form?

Re: The government ate my name

#186

Post by cwmma »

mcv wrote: post #146

The American presumption of having a single middle initial has always seemed weird to me. In NL, you can have as many names as you want, and some have a lot. Others have just a first and last name. I happen to have that single middle initial, but my wife and kids have two. Also, my wife's first name is not actually any of her legal names. Same with my dad and his brother and sister. "Calling name" is a common field o…

In America (well in my state, everywhere does it slightly differently) you can't really give people multiple middle names, all you really do is give them a single middle name with a space in it.

source: gave my children fancy names

Re: The government ate my name

#187

Post by kstrauser »

jonasdegendt wrote: post #142
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…

You actually got a space on the drivers license? When I moved to California and got a drivers license (easiest test process of my life, as a European, but that's another story), they dropped the space in my two word last name. Reads quite odd now. I always figured it was an all round America quirk to not have spaces in last names.

Yep. I just looked, and her last name is two space-separated names.

Re: The government ate my name

#188

Post by amanaplanacanal »

hiatus wrote: post #178
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, I'm not sure there are any laws about what you can be named. I'm not a lawyer though.

I don't think you can name your kid $()*&@Q%&

Well, Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, so I don't know.

Re: The government ate my name

#189

Post by RandomBacon »

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…

Don't "change" the name, get the name "corrected".

Source: I pretty much ran into the exact same thing.

Re: The government ate my name

#190

Post by marcellus23 »

krior wrote: post #68
pixl97 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think of government ascii as the entire ascii code page. Instead think of it as what's on a typewriter. You get 0-9 and A-Z along with a few punctuation characters.

Not very helpful - my typewriter has an ü :)

But do American English typewriters have a ü?
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