What's also fun are alphabet differences. Try to interact with the Greek government and they might ask you to spell your name using only their characters. An interesting challenge when your name contains sounds that don't exist in the local language (sh, hu).
A question for any Portuguese or Spanish speakers here, which I think are languages and cultures in which these sorts of name patterns are common - when you see a name like "Roberto Antonio Ferreira De Almeida", is it obvious where the "given" name stops, and the "family name" starts?
I'm guessing in this case it's fairly obvious, since I'm guessing Ferreira is analogous to something like Smith, but are there names where it's not obvious?
And are things like middle names even a thing there? Or is it all "given name consisting of several words"?
As problematic as national IDs and related things are are, I do someone wish my country would just assign me a universal identity number and let me use that for all government documents.
Names are just too deeply personal to impose someone else's rules on them.
I have this weird thing about a birthday -- for some reason, I was assigned a different birth date in NHS records in the UK compared to the one I have in my native Finland. I want to believe it has something to do with electronic systems transacting with different countries' systems (I noticed this difference soon after I exchanged my driver license) -- and I would have indeed born on a different day if it'd been the UK. But, I would assume this to be such a well-known issue with people who migrate, that it must just been just a typo. Doesn't stop me from believing though.
I've always wondered about a woman, Mary Jones, marrying Tom Smith and deciding to hyphenate her last name with Mary Jones-Smith. But then she has a daughter Sally Jones-Smith who meets and marries John Alexander-Wabasha and wants to hyphenate her name as Sally Jones-Smith-Alexander-Wabasha.
Sweden actually removed middle names. I believe now you can have 1–2 last names, 1+ first names and 0 middle names. You can choose a given name that you are called which can be different than the first names but usually isn’t.
This causes problems with forms and at airports that don’t allow for Swedish name rules.
When we named our daughter, we decided to ensure that she’d have a simple FirstName LastName with no middle name. My wife’s middle name is frequently stapled onto her first and it causes no end of pain.
There is some affordance available for representing various family members: her Chinese name can easily have different characters for them that have nothing to do with her actual name.
I'm obliged to mention Falsehoods Programmer Believe About Names: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... . As someone who also has two family names, I always dread questions for my "last name".
What's also fun are alphabet differences. Try to interact with the Greek government and they might ask you to spell your name using only their characters. An interesting challenge when your name contains sounds that don't exist in the local language (sh, hu).
A question for any Portuguese or Spanish speakers here, which I think are languages and cultures in which these sorts of name patterns are common - when you see a name like "Roberto Antonio Ferreira De Almeida", is it obvious where the "given" name stops, and the "family name" starts?
I'm guessing in this case it's fairly obvious, since I'm guessing Ferreira is analogous to something like Smith, but are there names where it's not obvious?
And are things like middle names even a thing there? Or is it all "given name consisting of several words"?
Pretty normal. My Chinese name is Chinese. Much less friction to pick a 21st-century English name in the anglosphere.
As problematic as national IDs and related things are are, I do someone wish my country would just assign me a universal identity number and let me use that for all government documents.
Names are just too deeply personal to impose someone else's rules on them.
I have this weird thing about a birthday -- for some reason, I was assigned a different birth date in NHS records in the UK compared to the one I have in my native Finland. I want to believe it has something to do with electronic systems transacting with different countries' systems (I noticed this difference soon after I exchanged my driver license) -- and I would have indeed born on a different day if it'd been the UK. But, I would assume this to be such a well-known issue with people who migrate, that it must just been just a typo. Doesn't stop me from believing though.
I've always wondered about a woman, Mary Jones, marrying Tom Smith and deciding to hyphenate her last name with Mary Jones-Smith. But then she has a daughter Sally Jones-Smith who meets and marries John Alexander-Wabasha and wants to hyphenate her name as Sally Jones-Smith-Alexander-Wabasha.
Then she has kids that marry.
Sweden actually removed middle names. I believe now you can have 1–2 last names, 1+ first names and 0 middle names. You can choose a given name that you are called which can be different than the first names but usually isn’t.
This causes problems with forms and at airports that don’t allow for Swedish name rules.
When we named our daughter, we decided to ensure that she’d have a simple FirstName LastName with no middle name. My wife’s middle name is frequently stapled onto her first and it causes no end of pain.
There is some affordance available for representing various family members: her Chinese name can easily have different characters for them that have nothing to do with her actual name.
The general complexity of name changes will never cease to intrigue me.
How do they handle this in Brazil? Is there a standard for which portion of a name shows up on credit cards and ID cards and such?
What would your name be if your father had not named you that?
So Pelé is just a handle then, eh?
Great article!, Beto is otherwise an amazing programmer great to see him here.
congrats!
Congratulations, and welcome to America.
Now you have an interesting story to tell your grateful descendants. :)
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