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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 :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a related issue, some Slavic language countries require foreign documents to be transliterated into the Cyrillic alphabet, which doesn't contain exact equivalents for certain English alphabet letters. They usually end up using the closest phonetic equivalent but this often causes bureaucratic hassles.
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?
Answering your question - basically, this comes down to the traditions of the languages.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Макконахи,_Мэттью
https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Метью_Макконагі
https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Матю_Макконъхи
So many people refuse to understand this. It's a fact they simply reject.
> I was born in Mexico City, and my parents named me Leonel Giovanni García Fenech. It might sound a little baroque to Americans, but having four names is standard in Spanish-speaking countries.
I'm as Anglo as they come, and I have four names. In practice, yeah, I often have to choose a middle name if a form has space for one (1) middle initial or middle name.
But all this hits upon something I don't like about the "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names" article: Programmers usually don't believe things, programmers implement things, and those things will believe what the client believes, on pain of the client finding someone who will go along with their vision, no matter how grand, blinkered, purblind, or otherwise constrained that vision may be. Blaming programmers is, therefore, very often wrong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> who assume that married couples, and parents/children all have the same last name and hit roadblocks when that expectation does not match reality Speaking as someone whose mom didn't change their name when marrying my dad, with a sister who didn't change her name when marrying my brother in law, with a wife who also didn't change her name when she married me, I think this problem is overblown. I have yet to encount…
I have experienced visa issues due to name differences in papers while traveling between Belarus and Russia. Monetary arguments were necessary to get through. But this was also over a decade ago.
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…
> who assume that married couples, and parents/children all have the same last name and hit roadblocks when that expectation does not match reality Speaking as someone whose mom didn't change their name when marrying my dad, with a sister who didn't change her name when marrying my brother in law, with a wife who also didn't change her name when she married me, I think this problem is overblown. I have yet to encount…
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.
what we really need to recognize globally is that languages change names. and that Kuznetsov in german or english is equivalent to Kuznetsova or Kuznetsov in russian or bulgarian and for example 库兹尼佐夫 or 库兹内佐娃 in chinese. in china i had to get a notarized translation of my name for official purposes.
passports could contain name entries in multiple languages to cover the most important differences. your native version, and english/western version and any others if you live in a foreign country where a translation of your name is necessary.
For anyone reading this...this isn't true. It finally actually went into effect on May 7, 2025.
EDIT: I HAVE witnessed someone at a TSA checkpoint at an airport get turned away because they didn't have a REAL ID.
My Dad used to own a liquor store back in the 70s, with his name on the sign (let's call it "Arthur's Liquor"). It was in a rough part of town. One day when I was a teenager, in the 90s, we were driving by and he saw the sign was still there, so he stopped and we went in. There's a Korean guy and his wife behind the counter.
Dad: Just wondering, who's Arthur?
Wife points to her husband.
Shop owner: Me. I'm Arthur.
Dad: No, I'm Arthur.
I'm just like, Dad, can we get out of here now?
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…
> who assume that married couples, and parents/children all have the same last name and hit roadblocks when that expectation does not match reality Speaking as someone whose mom didn't change their name when marrying my dad, with a sister who didn't change her name when marrying my brother in law, with a wife who also didn't change her name when she married me, I think this problem is overblown. I have yet to encount…
People getting the issues live in different systems and/or have different needs, and it also changes with our world getting more digital. One part that doesn't much depend on locality this days would be international travel and money.
For international travel, small kids having a different name is surprisingly painful and can get you stuck in an office for hours until it's somewhat clear you're not kidnapping them (proving you're a parent not being enough). Depending on how it goes your plane could be gone by that time.
Money is the same, there;s a lot less check if you send to yourself or family than to a random stranger. Having a different name can mean your transfer getting stuck for days of back and forth.
Then again, if you're just staying in your town never dealing with anything outside of it, you might never have to think about your name in your whole life.
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