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posted by martyb on Monday January 02 2017, @07:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the Robert');-DROP-TABLE-students; dept.

Jennifer Null's husband had warned her before they got married that taking his name could lead to occasional frustrations in everyday life. She knew the sort of thing to expect – his family joked about it now and again, after all. And sure enough, right after the wedding, problems began.

"We moved almost immediately after we got married so it came up practically as soon as I changed my name, buying plane tickets," she says. When Jennifer Null tries to buy a plane ticket, she gets an error message on most websites. The site will say she has left the surname field blank and ask her to try again.

Instead, she has to call the airline company by phone to book a ticket – but that's not the end of the process.

"I've been asked why I'm calling and when I try to explain the situation, I've been told, 'there's no way that's true'," she says.

But to any programmer, it's painfully easy to see why "Null" could cause problems for software interacting with a database. This is because the word 'null' can be produced by a system to indicate an empty name field. Now and again, system administrators have to try and fix the problem for people who are actually named "Null" – but the issue is rare and sometimes surprisingly difficult to solve.

[...] "Null" isn't the only example of a name that is troublesome for computers to process. There are many others. In a world that relies increasingly on databases to function, the issues for people with problematic names only get more severe.

Some individuals only have a single name, not a forename and surname. Others have surnames that are just one letter. Problems with such names have been reported before. Consider also the experiences of Janice Keihanaikukauakahihulihe'ekahaunaele, a Hawaiian woman who complained that state ID cards should allow citizens to display surnames even as long as hers – which is 36 characters in total. In the end, government computer systems were updated to have greater flexibility in this area.

Source: BBC.

What other names have you run into that have been problematic for computers?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:54PM (#448585)

    Well I still see lots of sites (including Google) use First Name Last Name which is retarded. It doesn't even work well for many people with "western" names.

    To me it would be better to have something like:

    Correspondence Name with Titles: e.g. what you'd like us to call you when we email you or write to you. examples: Mr Smith, 佐藤さん, 黄先生, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales.

    Official Name with Titles: e.g. His Royal Highness The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Chester, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Extra Knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Grand Master and Principal Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Member of the Order of Merit, Knight of the Order of Australia, Companion of the Queen's Service Order, Member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Aide-de-Camp to Her Majesty

    Account Name: preferred name when using the system, examples: Charles Philip Arthur George, HelloKittyFan2017.

    Yes in theory some people in the world don't have names or names that can be written down. But in practice at some point before interacting with the system a written name will be decided on.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @08:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @08:11PM (#448627)

    AKA Charles Mountbatten-Windsor [wikispooks.com]
    ...which was most likely what was on his military service documentation.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]