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0 pointssandslash10y ago0 comments

Don't mean to take away from the thread (I love what Tonjé and Ludovic are doing here and they're great guys!) but I also wondered about that last parenthetical question as well with some of my friends from France.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but in France, it is common, but not necessary, to write your last name before your first name in many situations. And secondly, many people also have last names that are also first names so to avoid confusion and awkwardness it's denoted in all caps.

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5 comments · 2 top-level

Lawtonfogle10y ago· 3 in thread

My favorite is in some Latin American cultures where if you have the name A B C, then B is the last name (father's B) while C is the secondary last name (mother's B). Many who move to the US take up A B as their naming structure due to so many Americans treating B as the middle name.

It makes me want to design all websites to have a single name field with 'Name as you want it to appear' (and a legal full name field if needed within the given domain). I've heard global addresses are even harder to account for.

adrianmsmith10y ago

You've probably seen these lists, but in case you haven't, I think they're great:

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b...

https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...

zyxley10y ago

And, of course, there's the niche but real case of people who only have a single name. For example, at a previous job, I once worked with a man whose legal name was just "Steel".

mc3210y ago

And the majority of Indonesians, who if pressed just reuse their name as last name. At least traditionally, not sure if gov is requiring last names.

lbostral10y ago

You are right. And just in case, the full name of Tonjé is Tonjé Bakang Tonje, so he doesn't mean to have a CAP problem (And I know his computer is aging not well :) but I think it was just to be clear with his full name.

Call him Tonjé (pronounce Tonjay), though, he will always answer you with a smile :)

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