I thought this was an interesting discussion of “problematic” names and computer databases. Our government has attempted to solve this problem by using the surname FNO for those who do not have last names. I met a young woman with this name recently after she sent me her resume to review. It was the first time I saw that. That she has to carry it with her as a legal name/identity is interesting. It says more about her perhaps than might be desired in some circumstances.
Noreen
Begin forwarded message:
From: gBRETT miller <gbrett@world.hey.com> Date: February 16, 2024 at 11:36:40 PM EST To: nwhysel@gmail.com Subject:2024.02.16 Reply-To: gBRETT miller <gbrett@hey.com>
A friend shared this article about the trouble some systems have with people's names. The main example they use is the last name "Null", which is an obvious potentially problematic name for several reasons.
But not all names are tricky because they are keywords. Some have unusual punctuation, some are longer than the average input field allows. Sometimes a name has a space in it, for example if someone has two first names.
Or if, like me, they use just an initial for their first name and include their middle name in the first name field. For a while, I used "G. Brett" as my first name on accounts like LinkedIn. Unfortunately, LinkedIn chose to present my name as simply "G."; less than ideal.
My online handle for most sites is "gbrettmiller", so I thought why not make my first name "gbrett"? Even better, "gBRETT" so people would get that I go by Brett (and the g is silent), or could at least infer it from the spelling. Except....
... That is an edge case that most systems don't seem to quite account for. Sometimes it gets presented as "Gbrett" ('Brett? I thought that was Garrett.'). Or it is simply all caps.
I didn't start out intending to be an edge case, but now that I am it is kind of fun to play around with it and see how systems (and people) react.
Which reminds me of one of my all time favorite XKCD comics.
