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In America we have a similar problem but related to length instead of special characters. I have two middle names. My name lengths are 6 7 6 6, but apparently 28 characters is just too many for some databases (or maybe the extra space).

I've had a lot of trouble over the years, especially when my name needs to match in two places (like getting TSA pre -- I had to sit down with a TSA agent to figure out exactly what to type where when buying airline tickets so it would match and give me precheck).




Clearly they didn’t follow the guidelines that popped up [1], in this great thread [2]. It turns out that assuming almost anything about people’s names is probably incorrect.

[1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13637102


It's probably not so much that they believe names never get above a certain length, as they have to physically fit on some form of paper tickets.

Similar issue with drivers licenses.




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