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The government ate my name

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Re: The government ate my name

#81

Post by SoftTalker »

msla wrote: post #73

> In fact, authorities in New York never actually wrote down anyone’s name, they just checked each immigrant against the ship’s passenger list, which would have been compiled by employees of the steamship companies. That means that your grandpa Szymańczyk turned into Simmons before he even set foot on the boat. So many people refuse to understand this. It's a fact they simply reject. > I was born in Mexico City, and…

I've come around to arguing for "name" to just be a text field. No rules. But so many people seem to think their systems need surname, firstname, middle name, etc. all separated. I rarely see an actual need for this. If you want to know what to call them informally, have that be a separate field that you prompt them for.

Re: The government ate my name

#82

Post by feoren »

hiatus wrote: post #65
watwut wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gendered name is grammatical construct, literally. But the strong "Elena Kuznetsov" cant exist rules are bad idea, because a.) foreigners exist b.) minorities exists c.) people with strong opinions over how they want to be named exist. They can exist, but sound weird in the language.

> people with strong opinions over how they want to be named exist. is a total non-issue. You can't, in any country I'm aware of, choose absolutely any name you want.

People's own opinions about what their name is is not a "non-issue", shitty-ass governments or not. Declaring a people's opinions about names stupid and irrelevant (or even illegal) is one of the many ways majorities oppress or even commit slow genocide against minorities.

Re: The government ate my name

#83

Post by SoftTalker »

nneonneo wrote: post #55
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…

Chinese people rarely change their surnames after marriage; kids usually inherit the father's surname and that's it. This has never caused any issues; systems I've interacted with have been totally OK with the idea that the parents can have different surnames from each other.

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

Re: The government ate my name

#84

Post by AndriyKunitsyn »

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

It's a question of scope, though.

Imagine you are an American designing a system. What about non-Latin alphabets? Yeah, these should probably be converted, nobody's going to bother with those. What about Hungarians, should we care about their O / Ó / Ö / Ő and U / Ú / Ü / Ű? And Icelanders - should we allow their Ð / Þ?

I understand that seeing your name misspelled hurts, but pretending ASCII is enough for everyone is an understandable simplification.

Re: The government ate my name

#85

Post by lmm »

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'm in the process of changing my name to one that fits the country I live in, for similar reasons. It's just easier for everyone. Names are a tool for communicating with other people, they're not who you are.

Re: The government ate my name

#86

Post by msla »

SoftTalker wrote: post #81
msla wrote: post #73

> In fact, authorities in New York never actually wrote down anyone’s name, they just checked each immigrant against the ship’s passenger list, which would have been compiled by employees of the steamship companies. That means that your grandpa Szymańczyk turned into Simmons before he even set foot on the boat. So many people refuse to understand this. It's a fact they simply reject. > I was born in Mexico City, and…

I've come around to arguing for "name" to just be a text field. No rules. But so many people seem to think their systems need surname, firstname, middle name, etc. all separated. I rarely see an actual need for this. If you want to know what to call them informally, have that be a separate field that you prompt them for.

> I've come around to arguing for "name" to just be a text field. No rules.

This is the morally correct solution, but governments run on forms and forms run on fields and fields were created by people who knew, as a matter of absolute ontological certainty, that names are FIRST MIDDLE-INITIAL LAST with a possibly blank MIDDLE-INITIAL. As for letters, if it isn't on Ethel's typewriter it doesn't exist.

If you want to protest the form, line forms over there, face-down, nine-edge first.

Re: The government ate my name

#87

Post by emmelaich »

QuantumNomad_ wrote: post #46
bombcar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, a relative of mine, Joseph (Irish last name) became José when he was a Gaucho in Argentina.

Re: The government ate my name

#88

Post by eftychis »

stockresearcher wrote: post #49
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 p…

Yeah I think also this is the correct path to try first. Some mistakes like that can be fixed.

Re: The government ate my name

#90

Post by fluidcruft »

makeitdouble wrote: post #79
cortesoft wrote: post #59

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…

Looking at it from the other way, your mom probably didn't change her name because it's not a big deal where you live ? 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 s…

I mean the comment they replied to specifically mentioned moving to America. I cannot fathom this being an actual issue in the USA.
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