Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009) | Hacker News Reader

Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

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Naming is an interesting thing. I'm wrestling with it from another contex presently.

I'm reminded of the lines from Homer. in which the hero (himself given at least two names within the text, including one in its title) unambiguously (and rather rashly as it happens) identifies himself to Polyphemus:

    Cyclops, if any man of mortal birth
    Note thine unseemly blindness and inquire
    The occasion, tell him that Laertes' son,
    Ulysses, the destroyer of walled towns,
    Whose home is Ithaca, put out thine eye.

Ancestry, name, deeds, place.

This is especially important because he's previously successfully fooled Polyphemus by calling himself Οὖτις ('Nobody'), which produces trouble when the Cyclops tries to get others to help defend against "Nobody's" attacks.

And I'm reminded of a time in college when my roommate, who majored in classics, came home from class today and told me that they discussed a theory that the Iliad and Odyssey, were not actually written by Homer, but rather by a different place poet who happened to have the same name.

"So they were actually written by Homer then?"

I thought it hilarious, because the only identity of Homer I knew was the guy who wrote those works, so what difference di see it make? Identifiers can get into very sticky business sometimes.

GEPs -- Generico-Eponymic Paradoxes

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/GEB/GEPs.html

"Homer's epics weren't written by him, but by someone else of the same name."

"Shakespeare's plays weren't written by him, but by someone else of the same name."

American TV commercial for Smucker's (maker of jelly) ---

"With a name like Smucker's, it's got to be good".

at a fast-food restaurant:

"You want the Coke or some other Coke?"

Also: Douglas R. Hofstadter, "Shakespeare's plays weren't written by him, but by someone else of the same name":

https://www.worldcat.org/title/shakespeares-plays-werent-wri...

But wait, there's more!

http://web.archive.org/web/20060913231744/http://www.cs.indi...

I heard there was a similar confusion with Jesus Christ, basically another prophet of the same name around the same time. One got killed on the cross but the other one lived, leading to the 'came back from death' rebirth story.

So the apostles who lived with him for several years were also just "confused"?

Well, there is the story about how he appeared and talked to some of them during the course of a lengthy walk and they didn't recognise him until dinner time... ;)

Yeah, there's quite a few prophets in the Bible by that same name. So many that they changed the language Jesus' name is rendered in to prevent confusion.

Jesus is the Latin form of Yeshua/Joshua.

> Ancestry, name, deeds, place.

Those are of course all there in the Greek, but the order is different:

    Κύκλωψ, αἴ κέν τίς σε καταθνητῶν ἀνθρώπων
    ὀφθαλμοῦ εἴρηται ἀεικελίην ἀλαωτύν,
    φάσθαι Ὀδυσσῆα πτολιπόρθιον ἐξαλαῶσαι,
    υἱὸν Λαέρτεω, Ἰθάκῃ ἔνι οἰκί᾽ ἔχοντα.

Cyclops, if any mortal man should ask you about the shameful blinding of [your] eye, declare Odysseus the city-sacker to have blinded [you], the son of Laertes, [who has] a home in Ithaca.

Name, deeds, ancestry, place.

On the other hand, it's quite normal in Homer for a character to be identified solely by ancestry, even where that information cannot unambiguously identify anyone. So Menelaus and Agamemnon, who are brothers, are both commonly referred to as Atreides ("the son of Atreus").

For completeness, the above English translation preserving the word order and line breaks of the original, using the following conventions:

1. [†] indicates that a word present in the Greek has been moved in the English.

2. word[†] indicates the word moved from the space marked [†].

3. [word] indicates a word not present in the Greek, but necessary in the English.

    Cyclops, if any [1] mortal man
    [2] should ask you[1] about the shameful blinding of [your] eye[2],
    declare Odysseus the city-sacker to have blinded [you],
    the son of Laertes, who-has[3] a-home[4] in[5] Ithaca [5] [4] [3].

I worked in insurance for over five years. One of the more common reasons we had to send out HIPAA notification letters was due to relatives in the same city with similar or identical names getting claims processed under the wrong policy. These were very often two male relatives -- father and son, twin brothers, cousins. They sometimes even lived on the same street.

There's also this story about two women with the same name and birth date who kept getting mixed up by the government of the city they lived in and finally met to sort it out:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/identity-the...

There are very real issues with not being able to reliably identify people in a world where we so routinely interact with people who don't personally know us. Thanks to my ex and I both having first-hand experience with family members having similar names, we both agreed on making sure our children had names that wouldn't cause that type of issue for them.

Yet I still have mixed feelings about our systems insisting on a particular name format. If it were a foolproof system, identify theft would not be a thing. Plus, it places a lot of weird, intrusive limitations on people who may not in actual fact get called by the name they are required to give as their "one true name."

Internet age version of this type issue:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20539187

See also the artist Banksy for a similar issue in terms of an anonymous person nonetheless having a consistent public identity and body of work.

> Thanks to my ex and I both having first-hand experience with family members having similar names, we both agreed on making sure our children had names that wouldn't cause that type of issue for them.

My aunt was in that same position, tired of her name being confused with other people in the family. So she named her 3 daughters 3 names unique from anyone in the family. Then 3 of her brothers in law married 3 women with those same 3 names.

that's an amazing coincidence

Or it was a well-planned prank/revenge.

Be careful with that - my friends enjoy an automatic level of anonymity even if they publish something under their real names, but my real name is rare enough that it points directly to me and me alone on Google results.

My real name is not uncommon. Many years ago, I decided to use it for professional posts on the web in order to build an online presence. There were no significant search results for my name at the time.

Shortly after that, two people (an actor and a prominent academic) with the same name completely overtook me.

The two extremes for the US are probably John Smith and something absolutely unique. Each has their pros and cons.

(Although my name isn't obviously unusual, it's actually more or less Internet unique and, at a minimum, I have a way bigger footprint than anyone else.)

ADDED: Personally it's probably advantageous to me to have a unique online identity. But it means I can't hide behind an excuse that "It must have been one of the other $NAMES that you read about." And I assume such conflicts could get a resume tossed pretty quickly by a recruiter doing a quick search.

The worst alternative is to have a name conflict who might be plausibly you based on location etc. where the other is a criminal, etc. I went to school with someone who shared a name with someone in NYC who was in very public and messy legal problems. He literally got death threats left on his (pre-Web) telephone.

I've just embraced it. My real first name (Ambroos) is usually my username and I'm easy to Google with just my first name as a result.

As far as I know my name is globally unique.

Feature of a rare last name (two farmers in two different parts of Norway independently intentionally picked the same misspelling of a more common name to set themselves apart from nearby farms about 200 years ago; only descendants of those two have my last name, and half of them are related to me) coupled with a relatively rare first name.

Annoying when it comes to anonymity, but sometimes it's nice being able to be identified by name alone.

>Annoying when it comes to anonymity, but sometimes it's nice being able to be identified by name alone.

I love having a modern-day superpower: online search anonymity. I have one of the most common firstname/lastname combos in the western world. I don't seen to show up on Google at all, even if you include my middle name. The last time I tried the "search for yourself" experiment I got to about page 200 of Google results that weren't actually me before I gave up. Combine that with my avoidance of social media, and it's like I'm off-the-grid without actually having to be off-the-grid.

Very true. I've experienced a bit of this first-hand.

Growing up, I, my father, and my paternal grandfather all shared the same first name and last name, and all lived within a couple of miles of each other (my father and I obviously lived in the same residence a big chunk of my childhood, and grandpa lived just a short hop away). Our mail (and gosh knows what else) got mixed up all the time.

To make it even worse, I'm one of those people who chooses to use my middle name, not my first name, as my primary name. So while "legal" correspondence often comes addressed one way, sometimes even that gets mixed up, and phone calls are always weird when I answer "Hi, this is Phil" and the person on the other end goes "Oh, sorry, I was calling for $FIRST_NAME". <click>

And to make this whole story even weirder, my maternal grandfather's middle name (which is what he went by) was the same as the first name shared by me, my dad, and my paternal grand-father. So yeah, we had four family members in a very small area, sharing confusingly similar names.

Naming stuff definitely gets weird.

>and phone calls are always weird when I answer "Hi, this is Phil" and the person on the other end goes "Oh, sorry, I was calling for $FIRST_NAME". <click>

So don't answer the phone that way. There's no reason to volunteer info to a complete stranger you know nothing about anyway. All you have to do is say "Hello?" Then the caller will say "I'm looking for <x>", and then you can handle it however you like.

When you're a small business owner, and you have potential customers calling your cell, it's polite and professional to state who you are.

Why not answer with you business name?

In such cases, isn't it usually better to have a business phone number, and perhaps a trade name as well?

So don't answer the phone that way.

Sure, I could do that. At this point, the way I answer the phone is more habit than any deeply considered policy. And honestly, more and more, I find that I rarely answer the phone unless I recognize the person calling. Everybody else can leave a voicemail or send email (which is more my preferred way to communicate anyway).

now I'm dying to call you and ask for $FIRST_NAME...

I screen out calls from you anyway, @mgkimsal!

Imposition of unambiguous, consistent and generationally persistent naming systems is a state fuction dating to Xia dynasty China (2070 B.C. -1600 B.C.), and were standardised in the Qin dynasty (221 B.C. -206 B.C.) as Xing Shi.

https://21chineseculture.com/origins-of-chinese-surnames/

It's also a major theme of James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State, though he doesn't trace the practice back that far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State

It's an imposition but it's more of a practical imposition needed from anyone living in something bigger than a small village.

People seem to take it as some government bureaucracy when what's really about is not getting confused with the tens or hundreds of other John Smiths living in the same neighbourhood/city as you.

This really shouldn't be a problem in the modern age when each person can be assigned a globally (or at least nationally) unique ID number as soon as their birth certificate is produced. It baffles me that the most technologically advanced country in the world still has difficulties figuring out who has the right to vote.

A lot of people in the US just don't like the idea of a central national database that stores information about them. To be sure, this (increasingly) happens at some level anyway. And to a lot of people in, say, Europe this probably seems like a baffling concern. But it's the way it is.

There doesn't even need to be a central database of every citizen. Distributed generation of unique identifiers is a more or less solved problem.

How does the distributed generation of unique identifiers help to keep track of who has voting rights?

State and/or municipal authorities could be tasked with generating identifiers and signing them cryptographically, so that any voting station can verify whether a given identifier is genuine. The federal government doesn't need to keep a central registry of all identifiers, only a list of public keys used by states and municipalities.

Obviously I'm not aware of any country doing things in such a convoluted way. But if Americans really don't want there to be a central registry of everyone's identity, modern computer science and cryptography could help.

You expect that over a hundred years we will manage to keep all private keys used secret?

Yeah, but corporate databases documenting every small detail of their life like who they meet, their location history, chat history with friends and family, etc, all that is fine. Because it's not the government... Never mind that the govt has access through prism and other channels... It really baffles me how voter ID is such a huge issue, but most Americans voluntarily offer up so much of their private info to online social netwoks.

Americans, correct me if I'm wrong but I've researched that left leaning people don't like the idea because minorities can't get documents easily because of distance or money, right leaning don't like federal government have the list and are a bit paranoid about it. Both reasons sound very weird to me.

Here in Italy we are given a Codice Fiscale at birth, which is a string of 13 characters derived by 3 letters of the last name, 3 letters of the first name (usually these 6 letters are all consonants, but there are exceptions for names like Anna), 2 digits, a letter and two other digits representing the birth day, one letter and the digits representing the birthplace an one last letter which is a checksum.

These are state-issued so in case of people that share all those characteristics there's a system in place which changes just one character and gives a different result.

Every contract I signed and every interaction with the government required this information, so the kind of mishaps you talk about are not that common here (at least to my knowledge). Also, different from US social security numbers, this is not used as the only credential for important services, so keeping it secret is not needed (also, it can be manually derived in most cases, indeed you know the needed data. The algorithm is public).

One other thing that avoids confusion is that father and son can't legally have the same name.

EDIT: more info on the Italian Fiscal code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fiscal_code_card

Same in Spain and Sweden when it comes to fiscal Id. Really useful.

But the number is not enough to buy anything or open a bank account. For that you need the physical id card that is as hard as forge as passports.

A very good system to make contracts, paying taxes, school registration, etc easy without allowing false impersonation.

Sweden's personnummer system is much more elegant - your code is your date of birth followed by a 4-digit unique identifier.

Everybody knows their personnummer by heart, while in Italy most people carry their health card around with the 16-character codice fiscale.

Well in Croatia OIB is a random 11 digit number, but still most people I know managed to memorize theirs, especially if you're an entrepreneur running a business and have to fill it all the time.

>Everybody knows their personnummer by heart, while in Italy most people carry their health card around with the 16-character codice fiscale.

Cannot say about Sweden, but most people I know in Italy also know by heart their Codice Fiscale (whether they carry with them nonetheless the card is another thing).

I know mine by heart and I still get mildly surprised reactions every now and then when I give it to an office worker.

How do you use this physical ID card online? Or phrased otherwise, how do you apply for a credit card or similar online?

> How do you use this physical ID card online?

You don't. For that, you can get a digital signature. You can go to a police station, or to an embassy and present your physical Id card to get a digital signature. You can use that signature to sign contracts or your tax returns.

> how do you apply for a credit card or similar online?

In Spain, with your usual bank, you use your login/password and your 2FA.

In Sweden, you can use Bank-Id almost everywhere to identify yourself. It is also a digital signature, but it has brother use.

In France the social security number has that role, in a format described here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSEE_code#National_identifica...

For administrative purposes it makes sense to uniquely identify people, but for privacy purposes it is a feature to not be uniquely identifiable. I don't think one can get around that tradeoff. In South Africa, if you have someone's ID and also their tax number then it is very easy to commit fraud.

Not sure. It also means you get blamed for crimes from your same-nameds.

I hear stories from the USA where repo men try to pin debts on the wrong people, etc.

The rest of the first world mostly has a unique ID for each resident, plus laws that stop abusing it. This seems vastly preferrable.

Also in Italy: my mom has several middle names and she has one set on her national ID, another on her driver's license and the codice fiscale was calculated with only the first given name.

She's having so much trouble opening a new bank account that she's probably going to legally change her name (rather than her codice fiscale).

I agree with you that in general this system works pretty well, but we also have our nagging issues.

In general the problem is that most automated systems ask you for all the info necessary to compute your codice fiscale and then double check what you've entered, if you're one of those cases where one letter had to be changed or something like that, most online forms will complain and give no possibility of recourse.

Your are lucky. Here in Denmark we have the CPR-number (det Centrale Person Register - the Central Person Register). Unfortunately this number is all to often used as authentication so is supposed to be kept secret. This is of course terribly broken and they get leaked all the time - also they are stamped onto everybody's national health insurance card[0]...

[0]: It's the "999999-9996" on https://i.imgur.com/GscmMjX.jpg

Where is the sole number used for authentication? We got the same number in Sweden but the number is not secret, you need it combination with something else like an ID, signature, digital signature etc.

In Estonia we have an personal identification code, it is never used as authentication, only for differentiating between people, we have Estonian ID card for authentication and identification.

To be picky, there is no "exception", there is a rule that is as follow:

For the surname get the first three consonants

For the name get the first three consonants.

If there are not enough consonants, use as many consonants there are, then start again from the beginning with vowels. If there are not enough consonants and vowels (two characters name) an X is added.

I.e. Anna is N (first consonant) N (second consonant) A (first vowel) -> NNA.

Ana would be NAA.

With a name like (say) Bo of only two letter, a X is added, i.e. BOX

https://www.paginainizio.com/service/strutturacodicefiscale....

It's worth mentioning that in case of ambiguity (people with the same name born the same day in the same city) the algorithm solves it by allowing the 7 numbers in the code to be replaced with letters, thus allowing up to 128 variations of the same fiscal code

Again to be picky, not really-really, the algorithm does very little.

If there is not "homocody" the algorithm is "enough".

If there is, then it is allowed to use an algorithm to calculate a different code, BUT this can only be done by the Agenzia delle Entrate that keeps all codes in a database to avoid duplications:

https://quifinanza.it/tasse/codice-fiscale-come-si-calcola-e...

Since the Codice Fiscale comes physically as a credit-card-like piece of plastic, there are no real issues with these "non-regular" codes in person, but - as carlob stated - a lot of online modules (which tend to verify the validity of the supplied Codice Fiscale against the "normal algorithm" applied to the other data supplied in the form, in an attempt to minimize errors/typos) do not usually recognize these "manually" generated by the Agency codes and reject the form.

In a perfect world such forms should warn the user that the Codice Fiscale is not valid (i.e. cannot be recreated by the "normal" algorithm) and provide the possibility to explicitly confirm.

I've also witnessed the opposite problem: a government office roughly equivalent to the DMV (motorizzazione civile) registering a driving license with a codice fiscale provided by person without checking that it was actually issued by the government.

15 yeas later, another person in a different city, miles away, argued loudly, while trying to file the request to convert a foreign driving license, that she 100% sure she didn't already have a driving license in Italy.

(Source: I was waiting in line for my turn and heard every word, increasingly feeling a Kafkaesque grip in my stomach and hoping to never get on the wrong side of Italian burocracy. fwiw, they didn't solve the issue during that session)

>fwiw, they didn't solve the issue during that session

Sure, that's normal, they could not.

It is anyway (even if caused by a different issue) a case of "homocody".

These can only be solved by the Agenzia delle Entrate or - in some cases - they cannot even be solved by them and you need to resort to other means.

And yes, being on the wrong side of bureaucracy is never a good place to be in, the Italian one (but more generally that of any nation with a similar approach, let's call them "Latin", I have personal experience with Spain and Portugal besides Italy, and they are rather similar) is a bit more complex than corresponding anglo-saxonish or germanish ones, but it depends a lot on the specific cases.

The Italian Motorizzazione Civile suffers historically from lack of personnel and the intertwining of "traffic Laws" with "General Law", things - recently - are getting a little better because of simplifications on the legal definition of car as property, but until a few years ago a "simple" change of ownership of a vehicle (what you normally do in the UK by mail and in Germany by going to the nearest Police station) was a terrible experience, usually taking months to obtain the new certification.

In this case the central registry couldn't solve the problem, because it was not their fault.

Both persons had two distinct personal codes, issued officially by the "agenzia delle entrate" office.

It's when the motor vehicle driving license of person A has been registered, that a transcription error happened.

Whether that instance could have been avoided with a more careful check or not misses the point.

The point is that data entry errors are possible.

As this little anecdote exemplifies, having a unique citizens code doesn't prevent the confusion of identities.

It makes it less frequent which in turn makes it a worse experience for those to whom it happens (since officials have no training to solve the issue).

E.g. the software at the "motorizzazione civile" is likely to treat the CF field with a "unique" constraint, which turns out to be a problem when a new user enters the system with a strong proof of legitimate ownership of a code that was likely erroneously used in the past.

Ah, well, then it was not a "homocody" issue, only a "bad transcription" or "human error".

It is not surprising that having a unique citizens code doesn't prevent the confusion of identities when the transcription/inscription is not accurate.

But with all due respect, it is only a truism.

Which however opens the usual dicotomy between frequency of the problems and procedures designed to fix them, it is likely that an extremely rare problem has no "easy fix" exactly because it is rare and maybe it was the first time it happened to the DMV employees involved and there was not an already actually "coded" resolution.

On the other hand, when a problem happens often enough, there will be a ready made, "common" solution to it and even if the high frequency of the problem is actually a sign of an original bad implementation, the public will not perceive it as an issue.

Interesting, Croatia moved away from personally identifiable information (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Master_Citizen_Number) to randomly chosen digits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identification_number....

My father (a lawyer) and I shared first and last Names, and a middle initial. Local jury commission kept sending notices for him to attend, with increasing levels of threat. I called and told them "he's dead" and they said "prove it".

So after many failed calls and letters including the death certificate, and now threat of warrant being issued, I had to act. It's not like a cop at the door is going to care that the middle NAMES are different.

I took his cremated remains to their office. Thumped the box down on the counter and said, "You keep demanding he show up, so here he is." I cracked open the box and the woman about lost it and dashed off. Her supervisor showed up and I explained my frustration. They guaranteed it'd be handled. We never saw any notices again.

Fast forward 20 years and a friend is an attorney practicing in a nearby county. A case of someone failing to appear for jury duty comes up (warrant served). Judge says "unless someone brings your dead remains to the office, you're not getting out of jury duty".

My old man would have been absolutely DELIGHTED to have entered local folklore, on both counts.

I read through the whole article. It feels like a Kafka novel, and it's the kind of thing that makes me fear any institution with unchecked, unaccountable power over other people. Even if issues are discovered, there's no way to really solve them in the context of the bureaucracy and if you happen to be affected, you're just simply screwed. People either don't care or have some interest in the system being as dysfunctional as it is (see any number of US citizens being held indefinitely as "illegal immigrants").

Aahhh, this is the Brazilian football/soccer player naming phenomenon [1] : Zico, Ronaldinho, Sócrates, Pelé, Ronaldo, Edú, Falcão ...

( A Zico free kick in particular was such a joy to watch. )

[1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/06/how-brazilian-so...

Note that (if I counted correctly) 2 of them are the official first name, 2 are some variation of the first name and 3 are nicknames unrelated to the first or family name.

> A man named Ferrari might not be a blacksmith.

It was right in front of me and I feel dumb, having never considered it might have the same latin root as the word ferrous.

https://www.thoughtco.com/ferrari-last-name-meaning-and-orig...

I feel dumb too. Although on reading it my brain made the link with Farrier, who specifically makes horse shoes.

From the article:

> Many nearby countries, like France and Germany, had systematized surnames generations earlier

Which isn't actually true: Prussia (and after German Unification, Germany) instituted a wave of fixed family names in the 19th century. As the names were recorded by officials, they often ended up being changed/assigned by same officials (as also happened at Ellis Island in the USA). In the Prussian case you can see it directly in the case of names assigned to jewish families, which often played to stereotypes (Goldschmidt "goldsmith") or mocked the recipient (Fischbaum "fish tree").

Turkey performed this process after the revolution in the 1920s; I read that Atatürk chose his as "Father/Sire/Source of the Turks"

The field of naming is called Onomastics.

> I read that Atatürk chose his as "Father/Sire/Source of the Turks"

IIRC, the Parliament (Grand National Assembly of Turkey) gave Atatürk his "surname".

It might give more context to add his definition of "Turk" is similar to "American". Basically, it's about how you feel; if you feel like you're Turkish, you're Turkish. It's not tied to a specific race.

In Afghanistan it's extremely common to have a "last name" that is basically the same thing as an Icelandic last name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_name

If your name is Mahmoud, and your father's name is Jawad, your name printed in English on a passport might be:

Mahmoud Jawad-e

It literally just means son of Jawad.

Other people have family names that are specific to the region where their family is historically from. Met more than a few people whose last name is "Parwane", which literally just means from Parwan province.

This lady literally didn't have a last name and picked her own, it translates as "friend of humans".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmHQYV127QA

The insistence on a surname is quite annoying for people who don't have one or use one. In India, there are many cultures where a surname or family name isn't used or isn't passed down from one generation to another and to the next and so on. There are cultures where a surname is used. But what's very common across the country is addressing people by their first (or only) names whether or not one is close to them. Even in writing (except in newspapers and TV), it's common to refer to people by their first (or only) names or to use the person's full name.

Most websites that need a name assume that everyone has a last name and make it mandatory. What's more ridiculous is that this habit is prevalent even in places where it may be uncommon (like in some parts of India)! Even Jesus didn't really have a surname that was used everywhere. Jews in those times (and for a much longer period) didn't have surnames either.

Instead of celebrating and appreciating the diversity among humans and human naming conventions, today's world thrives on forms that want to normalize things. It's just laziness and/or ignorance and/or unwillingness to learn.

See "Falsehood programmers believe about names". [1]

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

There was a stand up comedian of Algerian descent explaining that situation when the French administration tries to do the census of their colony. The custom was to use your father's and grandfather's name as a name. Problem is, many people, including brothers would have the most popular name (I think it was Mohammed). Having a Mohammed, son of Mohammed, grandson of Mohammed was common.

So the French admninistration gave arbitrary names to families. Algerians were rightfully angry about that.

But then it got me thinking about what kind of acceptable solution you would have. There are naming conventions that are good enough to keep track of people in a village of mid-sized town. Given name + Parents names.

Family names start appearing when you need to be able to identify a person unambiguously among the population of a big country. Some places never went through that phase, yet being able to identify unambiguously a person who may have changed address or even country is perfectly valid.

In the absence of a universal ID scheme, I don't see a way around forcing a working pattern into every culture, with the acceptance that some things may be lost in translation.

Jesus would have registered as "Jesus Bin Yoseph" to get a passport or an Amazon Prime account. His (hypothetical) children would have "Bin Jesus" as their family names.

Hopefully one day we have a UID for humans that can be mapped to a variety of naming scheme, but we are not there yet.

>Hopefully one day we have a UID for humans[…]

that sounds really dangerous

I keep seeing people from US and UK equating IDs with totalitarianism. Why? I don't follow the reasoning here.

I believe all Americans have a social security number, right? And all passport holders have a de-facto global UID (but not everyone has a passport and bi-nationals may have several)

I don't see what this enables that would be impossible without.

I find it amusing at how many Americans seem resistant to a national ID system, but blithely give out their social security number to any number of private entities, along with their DOB, full name, mother's maiden name, etc. Basically a ready made identity theft kit when the inevitable data breach occurs.

You already have a national attempt at a GUID per human, it's called a social security number, it just has incredibly lax security and data handling practices, and no teeth in penalties for its misuse.

I think there are several reasons:

1. Centralization gives provides a juicy target for misuse/negligence by both legitimate (see: Equifax) and illegitimate (see: Cambridge Analytica). De-centralization allows a preferable level of chaos

1. Historically there has been an attempt at balancing federal (national) vs local (state) powers.

2. The country can probably not even agree on one standard -- some states for examples are very strict while others are not (usually along party lines)

But do any of these address the point that effectively anyone in a developped country already has one or more unique IDs of some kind ?

And for any developping country, time will come where people who don’t have an ID now will need to get one, to receive care, go to school, get out of the country or drive a car.

In that sense, if a country allows people to not have a surname, as long as they have at least one canonical ID I guess it’s fine.

Cambridge Analytica did not rely on any centralized ID scheme. Just Facebook ID.

What you want are strong privacy laws. GDPR is overdue in USA.

The UK has no requirement for ID. The old WW2 ID was abolished in the early 50s as an infringement of civil liberties. The idea being that a citizen can go about their lawful business without interruption unless suspected of something. IDs were being asked for by police and others as a matter of course rather than of suspicion.

A passport or driving licence forms a de facto ID, but both of those are voluntary, and there is no requirement to carry them. You don't even need to carry your driving licence when driving. I haven't seen my driving licence for years! I think I know which drawer it's in. :)

There are also voluntary ID schemes for youngsters who want to prove they're old enough to buy alcohol and tobacco, or be in a club etc.

> IDs were being asked for by police and others as a matter of course rather than of suspicion.

Is the existence of an ID really the problem there?

I like the idea that having to provide an ID is optional and the police can't force someone to comply without a good reason, but the existence of an UID for people seems really necessary in a lot of cases, to prove someone did not vote 10 times in an election, to track your pension state, your debts, your condemnations (I don't want someone to confuse me with a criminal of the same name!)

UID per se no. Asking for it, most definitely yes. This is a hill I would die on. I have a passport and driving licence. I can be asked to produce my driving licence in limited circumstances (suspected of driving offences and stopped) at a police station within 7 days. Every other production of ID is optional, except passport at international ports. No ID needed for NHS care, dental care - there's an NHS number but I haven't the foggiest what it is. It's unconnected with my criminal record or lack, my debts, my pension etc etc. To vote I have to be on the electoral role, which is a special purpose UID, and can be hidden from public view. None of these are wrapped in an all encompassing national ID. They are specific to purpose, and should remain localised to that purpose. e.g. My employer will want my NI Number for pension and tax contributions.

I don't have to produce ID to the police, though I can be asked to identify myself. If arrested and I claim to be Winston Churchill I can probably expect a little more than average checking.

Circumstantial proof of ID is more than enough in most cases. If I want to apply for my first passport there are ways of acceptably identifying myself without any other form of ID.

We've managed without for 70 years without reducing ourselves to a banana republic (You may feel Brexit is doing that). :)

Note that, right or wrong, this is the kind of attitude that made Brexit happen.

And it's why, to a lot of Americans with no horse in the race, certain aspects of Brexit seem quite understandable even when they are in a different class/income level than most Brexit voters are.

Not making a political statement. But suspicion of national registration/ID/papers is much more prevalent in some countries than others.

I really don't understand how.

Ireland doesn't require ID either. You could visit Dublin on the ferry from England showing no papers other than your ferry ticket, bought for cash as you walked on to the boat, and I'm pretty sure vice versa. Even when there were the armed checkpoints between North and South. Did this quite a few times. I see no significant support for an "Iexit", so it can't be connected with ID, or attitudes to it, but the disingenuous politicians and right of centre British media stories on the EU. Murdoch et al.

As far as I know no EU citizens were required to have additional identity requirements, or present anything for NHS treatment, until the actions of the current and previous Tory governments. Which I found offensive in the extreme. FWIW I voted remain.

If I travel to a country in the EU or elsewhere that requires ID, I carry ID. I'd have my passport anyway. I might wish they had a similar attitude to ID, for the reasons stated.

All the EU countries except for Denmark, Ireland and UK have identity cards.

All the EU countries except for Ireland and UK are part of the Schengen Area (or are obliged to join in the future, for some recent members). It remains to be seen what Ireland status is once UK is out, depending on what kind of border is put in place between them.

The trend in the EU is for more control (regarding IDs and in many other issues) and this was not well appreciated by many UK citizens.

That neatly demonstrates the idiocy of Brexit: The UK, Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man have had a common travel area since before WW2, requiring no papers. Which could easily disintegrate with the way our govt is going about Brexit, and would cause issues. Complete freedom from papers changed 15 or 20 years ago for air travel in that it got silly: you "had to prove that you didn't need to prove your ID, by having Irish or British ID". The ferry kept on requiring nothing at all, I don't know if that's changed since.

The trend in the EU has been for removing ID to travel between countries within the zone. As far as I am aware once you're inside the Schengen zone ID rules remain whatever is the case within the country. i.e. Denmark wasn't required to make ID compulsory to be within the system, it's only supposed to be travel in and out of the zone that's affected is it not? There don't seem to be moves to change. Obviously a Dane would carry some ID when visiting France or another EU country requiring it.

Course there's all the "temporary" internal borders inside Schengen for migrant or terrorist checks etc that weakens the whole concept.

My point is that the UK is a bit of an outlier in the EU and was resisting many of the “unification” policies (including also the common currency, again in the company of Denmark — and Sweden that’s supposed to join but it’s just not doing it). UK citizens distrust their government and even more a supranational government and in the same way that UK citizens don’t like being controlled by their government the UK doesn’t like being controlled by the EU. That’s what I meant by “this kind if attitude” and apparently these are hills a majority of people chose to die on.

Ireland - yes and no.

The Irish Government like to deny it, but I'd argue that the "Public Services Card" (https://psc.gov.ie/) is a de-facto ID card (and hence central ID database).

> I can be asked to produce my driving licence in limited circumstances (suspected of driving offences and stopped) at a police station within 7 days

You must stop when asked to by a police officer. They don't have to suspect an offence. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/163

You must produce, when asked, your documents. They don't have to suspect an offence. Not producing when asked is committing an offence, but there's a defence if you produce your papers within 7 days at your nearest police station. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/164

> No ID needed for NHS care,

There's no ID needed for primary care or emergency care. You may be asked to prove ID if you get secondary care. The NHS number is irrelevant for whether you get charged or not.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

> I don't have to produce ID to the police

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

It is an offence to refuse to give your details or to give false details to a PCSO (so not even a police officer) if they think you have littered or they think you have behaved anti-socially. Or they think you're part of a group that includes some people who've behaved anti-socially and they've asked the group to disperse.

> stop when asked to by a police officer

My mistake, I thought there was a need for cause for a producer. Such as the made up "faulty brake light" that miraculously starts working again when you have stopped, or you just got pulled for speeding etc. :)

> prove ID if you get secondary care

Yeah, that's the newly minted, and rather offensive regs from Theresa, in the govt mission against immigration, most of which always been from outside the EU. It was previously much the same for Brits and EU citizens as I understand it. From a quick glance of the link it seems to generate a couple of absurdities along the prove you don't need to prove ID lines that's been in the UK:Ireland travel area a while.

ID to the police or PCSO

Yes, they can ask for my name and address, and I'm expected to be truthful as they may check. They can't demand documentary evidence of same such as my papers or driving licence when not in control of a vehicle.

They might go away and check against their records, electoral role and so on. They might ask if I can confirm this, and much of the time I can honestly answer "no" without problem. They'll have more to say if I claim to be M. Mouse of 10 Downing St. Obviously if arrested they can search and find any circumstantial or actual evidence of ID, like a bank card or driving licence, that will hopefully match the name provided earlier.

So you are in favor of several national IDs, but just don't want one? I must say I don't follow.

Forbidding to interconnect personal files is a different issue than having an individual UID

And I would be VERY surprised if the UK government was unable to connect passport IDs and criminal records.

Interestingly, voter ID laws are massively controversial in the US. The rationale is because they have disproportionate effects on African-Americans, and that voter fraud (eg somebody voting ten times in an election) does not seem to actually happen that frequently anyway.

as I understand it, voter ID laws are controversial because certain groups of people are less likely to have official ID. in general, if you don't drive or leave the country, you don't need a state-issued ID. if the federal government issued an ID to every citizen of the US, you couldn't argue that the requirement disproportionately impeded minorities from voting; they already have the ID!

of course, there are many other reasons why a mandatory national ID would be politically unfeasible in the US.

If you don’t drive, leave the country, fly on airlines, buy alcohol or tobacco, patronize establishments legally designated as certain categories of alcohol-serving establishments or adult entertainment venues, have a bank account, or have an actual job that would require you to fill out an I-9, you might be able to live in America without ID. But it seems really, really hard.

In places without any kind of unique ID, multiple voting is often prevented by dyeing your thumbnail after voting. This is sufficient to keep voter fraud down to insignificant levels. The UK commenter points out that a number specific to the voting process is also adequate to the purpose. Pension accounts can similarly be identified by numbers specific to the money in question, and in that case there's not even any requirement for being one to one—your pension contributions from different years can and possibly should be in separate, unlinked accounts. Certainly there is no benefit, and potentially enormous harm, in linking your pension to your voting.

You may not have any requirement for ID, but to actually function in the society you need one. So in practice you do need one.

As for carrying them, yeah, that should not be necessary.

Hmm. You need very occasionally, such as when opening a new bank account, to prove name and address - a utility or council tax bill, letter from the tax office, or even previous bank or a mortgage statement etc will generally suffice. There's a fair list of what is and isn't accepted, and it's fairly infrequently needed. Like only when creating a new and often financial relationship.

Can't remember the last time - ten years perhaps. Someone young setting up lots of things for the first time, much more often.

The only reason for a UID is to track what you do. A world full of events where that is a pressing need is a frightening one.

If you google "mark of the beast real ID" you'll see all kinds of very interesting reasoning. I don't know how much I'm joking about it, because if you don't think there's believers you're in a bubble -- I'm not saying whether or not they're crazy to reject a Real ID on religious grounds, but I think it is a pressure in american politics at least.

> And all passport holders have a de-facto global UID (but not everyone has a passport and bi-nationals may have several)

Mostly agree with your point, but for the decades to come in this case it would be better to keep IDs of different nations separate.

Like most measures that give more power to governments, it makes things easier for them, not possible. Are you honestly not aware of how unique permanent identifying numbers give governments more power over the people thus numbered? There are examples in the article.

US passports, among others, do not have a number identifying the holder, only the passport. Each time you replace the passport, every ten years or less, you get a new number. The passport also does not bear the social security number.

> And all passport holders have a de-facto global UID (but not everyone has a passport and bi-nationals may have several)

In India, passport numbers change (for the same person) whenever they're reissued (renewal, lost, etc.). That's a good thing, IMO.

Having a full combination of first + family name doesn't really help for identification purposes, though: "John Smith" may not be quite as unidentifiable/ambiguous as "Mohammed, son of Mohammed, grandson of Mohammed", but it's not too far off it either.

In general, websites don't depend on these names for identification; if a site refused to sign me up because I shared a name with another "Smith, John" then I would rightly be irritated. So why do (many) sites insist on collection first and last names separately, as opposed to just a "full name" field that would be used to address me on the site or via email? Is it purely a data collection / advertising / monetization thing?

It is not perfect, far from it, and the reason why so many Americans have second names (After all, USA had to Georges Bush as president)

A free form "full name" text could be the solution, but then the problem is forcing a formatting on it so that one person always puts the same thing in this field. Should I include second names? Accents? Is that family name first or second? At least, with clearly labeled fields you are already able to tell Adam Smith from a Smith Adam.

Webshops usually are happy with name + current address but there are administrative domains where this is not acceptable.

There are also differences with how surname/given name ordering translates between languages. For example, a Chinese name like Xi Jinping has Xi as the surname and is rendered in that order in both Chinese and English. A Japanese name like Shinzo Abe is rendered in Japanese as Abe Shinzo with Abe as the surname.

> sites insist on collection first and last names separately, as opposed to just a "full name"

Because that's also a cultural bias from (some) western countries. And even then some countries that "insist" on First/Last name don't have Middle names.

You might also want to split First/Last names to display things like Mr. Smith

In practice (especially for government purposes), John Smith is not only John Smith, but John Smith born in Day-Month-Year, in City, etc.

There are many people whose name is Jesus

> Algeria

> Having a Mohammed, son of Mohammed, grandson of Mohammed was common.

> In the absence of a universal ID scheme, I don't see a way around forcing a working pattern into every culture, with the acceptance that some things may be lost in translation.

Pakistan has very much the same problem, they've gone for a national ID card system. It hasn't been entirely fraud or ID theft free, but they're certainly trying.

https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=nad...

Atatürk (the founder of the Turkish Republic) made surnames mandatory as a reform to be compatible with Europe (he was very pro-Europe) and this was in 1934. Everyone got to pick their own surnames. Luckily people hesitated to pick Mohammed because the word for last name in Turkish translates to "name of lineage" and that'd be a big claim (also I've heard that it wasn't allowed not to put a target on non-muslims' backs). So now we have a significant portion of the population with the surname "Pure/Core Turk" (Öztürk) and its variations (my surname Özcan included). Atatürk (father Turk) was reserved for the president though :)

This is hilarious! Thanks for sharing.

Did he have any children? That is, do you have any Atatürks running around today?

He didn't. There were some people who claimed otherwise but without any piece of evidence whatsoever.

> Family names start appearing when you need to be able to identify a person unambiguously among the population of a big country

Pretty sure they go back further than that. Family names that are former patronymics (Svenson, Stevenson, Godwinson etc) are notably more common in Northern England than Southern. Reason being that was the Danelaw part of England where the Vikings held sway until roughly the Norman Conquest - 1066. They've stuck around as family names for over a thousand years.

The Domesday book was a survey of landowners and their holdings - mere peasants were listed numerically by class amongst the other holdings of the landowner, for tax and military purposes. The next attempt at a similar census was the mid 19th century. :)

Iceland—a relatively small country—still uses patronymics rather than surnames for the most part. The singer Bjork is Björk Guðmundsdóttir, because her father is Guðmundur Gunnarsson, which makes Bjork “Guthmund’s daughter”.

There are still confusing exceptions: the retired footballer Eiður Guðjohnsen is not actually Gudjohn’s son; he is the son of Arnór Guðjohnsen.

Interesting, I didn't know that. There was a big period of confusion in the overlap with some keeping to patronymics, some using as a family name. I'm not sure if it was Christianity, or personal preference that made the switch, as Christianity wasn't fully rolled out to England yet, again Danelaw areas being late adopters. Parish records of births, marriages and deaths were still 500 years away, so maybe no one really knows.

Helpfully, the old Saxon custom of the eldest having a particular first name - which would be given to the next eldest if the older one inconveniently died, stuck around a good while too!

How often were sons named for their fathers? I imagine it would be confusing to have generations of John Johnsons around.

Regarding “the eldest having a particular first name which would be given to the next eldest if the older one inconveniently died”—is that referring mainly to childhood mortality? I’ve read of names being reused at times due to the (by modern standards) shocking rate of infant mortality but I’ve never heard of that particular custom.

I honestly don't know, but probably not that uncommon as naming for the father has carried into the modern era. No less confusing to have three generations of John Smith.

The eldest getting a given name may have been a status thing, perhaps tied in with succession. Eldest being the one that would inherit the land or title. The young had all sorts of opportunities to die, and even escaping childhood was no guarantee as you'd then be expected to make up a Lord or King's retinue of men for any conflict. Maybe it's the origin of popes and some monarchs taking a name on succession - the "job name".

>> Jesus would have registered as "Jesus Bin Yoseph" to get a passport or an Amazon Prime account. His (hypothetical) children would have "Bin Jesus" as their family names.

More precisely, "Yeshua Bin Yoseph" and "Bin Yeshua" for his kids.

"Yeshua Bin Yoseph" most likely being an actual name of at least one individual living today (somebody from Israel).

Another consequence of insisting on surnames is that those without a surname are forced to append say their father's name as a surname, with the result that their name now becomes twice as long. Each of the individual names (of the person and their father) was about as long as needed to be somewhat unique (some sort of universal "full name" length), but with the artificially added surname, the resulting length is now two times that. Quite annoying to spell out such long names on the phone for instance.

I'm working in a product right now where we've run into this and we have a ticket to remove the family name requirements.

Even if we remove the family name requirement from our end, a third party we use for identity verification still requires a family name, so how do we deal with that?

Request that they change, and if they won't, then find a new third party I guess?

Joe base26(md5("null"))

It's an 'identity verification' service though, so I doubt it will work very well if you feed it bogus info.

There simply is not enough entropy for one name. Even in a small village.

Hence why there are surnames (or equivalents, Jesus son of Joseph)

Not a normalisation.

True, surnames are used for hierarchical system hence why some people don't want to use them for instance.

But websites aren't here to pander to you.

They want to make $. The less entropy they have on you the better. It's not laziness and/or ignorance and/or unwillingness to learn.

Some cultures in South India simply have the place from which they are from as their surname. Most of the south Indians have their father's name as surnames as well

In some Western European cultures (Portuguese and Spanish, and thereby Latin American), most people have two last names.

When dealing with automated systems in other countries, it causes all manner of problems!

Or having to give your « middle name » in the Anglosphere ! Try explaining you have three to a clerk...

> Try explaining you have three to a clerk...

Or even that you don't have a first name but a set of given names and that the relative that gave you the name that is conventionally often put in a later position would not be amused about another relatives name singled out to be a "first name".

Is it harder than just saying "I have three middle names"? It's not exactly a foreign concept; it is normal for white Americans to have more than one, though not especially common.

Three "middle names" might not be a problem but the lack of a first name would almost certainly lead to troubles. Of course you can always just choose one of your "middle names" as an artificial "first name". Some people might find this disrespectful though.

Note that the convention of what is your given name and what is your family name, and how they are inherited are different that the convention in USA. This add a lot of confusion when someone moves and need to fill paperwork. Using a "|" to separate your given name(s) and your family name(s):

---

Common pattern in USA:

Father: X Y | Z

Mother: A B | C

Your name: R C | Z

---

Spain/most of Latin America:

Father: X | Y Z

Mother: A | B C

Your name: R | Y B

---

Argentina:

Father: X Y | Z

Mother: A B | C

Your name: R S | Z

(Catholic?) Germany:

Father: X | Z

Mother: A | C

Set of Godfathers and Godmothers given names: {G}

Your name: {G} | Z

There are also double given names. For example Hans-Peter is a differs from Hans Peter. The later could also be rendered Peter Hans but for Hans-Peter the order is fixed.

---

Many Slavic Countries:

Father: X | Z

Mother: A | C

Your name (boy): R | patronymic(X) | Z

Your name (girl): R | patronymic(X) | feminine(Z)

The middle part is neither given name nor surname but referred to as patronymic.

---

I know someone who went to study one year in Portugal, one of the things she noticed was that most students' full name would fill more than two thirds of a printed A4 paper.

That for sure would cause problems in some standard forms.

What names do Portuguese people (or people with longer-than-average names) put on flight tickets?

I think I've tried looking this up before, but is there an IATA regulation on what names are acceptable for a flight ticket?

I have seen the following variations in Pakistan. Given name is what people prefer to be called informally. * marks if people strongly prefer to be referred to by this name in a formal setting. Prefixes are usually religious in nature (Muhammad/Syed) and then you are never supposed to use them except when reading out the full name.

FamilyName GivenName*

<optional prefix> GivenName FamilyName

GivenName* Father'sGivenName

GivenName Father'sGivenName FamilyName

Father'sGivenName GivenName FamilyName

Prefix GivenName*

My name is of the third type and as a scientist it annoys me immensely that my work is referred to by my Father'sGivenName in western culture when no one has ever called me that in real life in my culture.

Source: my own comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19973627

Interestingly, Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius mentions "Galileo Galileo" on the cover.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereus_Nuncius

I wonder if this is at all related to the question asked in this article.

That looks like the Latin ablative case, governed by the preposition "a" in the previous line. In Latin you can see many different forms of a name depending on its context in a sentence (the two most common in books' title pages being the genitive and ablative, roughly meaning 'of' and 'by').

In Italy it’s quite common to go with Galileo Galilei, I would say we use name surname most of the time when we mention him. Maybe it has to do also with how it rolls out of the tongue nicely for us.

In German I think we also use Galilei more then Galileo.

For a German native speaker I feel Galileo Galilei is a tongue breaker. I envy you Italians...

The US English dictionary in Firefox knows about Galileo but doesn't recognize Galilei. When I switch to German it is the opposite: Galilei recognized but Gelileo unknown. This kind of supports your point.

In Sweden I have heard Galileo Galilei often enough for it to stick in my mind. Maybe something from middle school text books actually didn't rub off with the years? But Galileo is more common.

Not so sure about that. For example there’s this German TV show that lasted 6000+ episodes over the last 20 years, with popular science content (at least originally). It’s known by almost everybody and it is called Galileo, not Galilei.

In France we say "Galilée". Not sure if it's referring to first or last name.

Classic France!

In Greek Galileo's whole name sounds funny. "Ο Γαλιλαίος Γαλιλέι" sounds a lot like a verb phrase, "Galileo is Galileing".

Although there is no verb "Galilei" in Greek it does sound like a weird way to say that "Someone is saying something in Gallic (French)".

Actually in German the transformations named after him are referred by his last name. (Galilei-Tranformation/Galilei-Invarianz) But in English they are usually called Galilean transformations.

My name has 6 parts.

In Sri Lanka, it's common to have a family name and a surname. Many Sri Lankan have super long full names that often don't even fit in Western forms.

Further more, my brother and I (who we share both parents) have 4 names that are common.

In a name like "A B C X Y Z", - A is often a name from the generation. You can judge how prestigious the family is by the name. - B is sometimes not present, but if it is, it is an adjective to emphasize said A. - C is often to indicate a relationship. I don't think we have more than 100 in the country. - X and Y are the typical first and middle names. - Z is the last name.

One advantage I can think of is that, I can share a flight ticket with my brother and father!

Similarly, it’s Leonardo or Leonardo da Vinci, never ”da Vinci”, a popular book and movie notwithstanding. ”da Vinci” is not a family name but a moniker referring to his place of birth, the town of Vinci in Tuscany.

Last names, surnames & nicknames were initial attempts of man to address name collisions.

SMS lingo & keyboards caused this: https://www.abbreviations.com/acronyms/FAMOUSPEOPLE

I hear there are 300 million Hindu gods, someone ought to list them out somewhere for reference.

Be careful with that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_Go...

I guess you can start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu_Sahasranama#The_Thousan...

The interesting thing to me is that we call his father, a lutenist and composer, Vincenzo Galilei. Maybe there has to be an unbroken tradition of referring to the person at all; we've talked about Galileo nonstop for 500 years, but there were a few hundred years there where almost everyone had forgotten Vincenzo.

In Russia it's just Galilei or sometimes Galileo Galilei, but never Galileo.

Having a single name is quite common nowadays, particularly among celebrities: Slash. Bono. Dido. Cher. Sting. Prince. I really wonder what it says in their passports. And what about The Rock? Is his first name "The" and his last name "Rock"?

Is this a serious comment? Have you really never heard of stage names? Or even bothered to look at any of their Wikipedia pages?

Yes, it was a serious comment, and yes, I'm aware of stage names. I suppose I could have said that you can think of "Galileo" as Galileo Galilei's stage name, except that he wasn't a performer.

I used to do Christmas card mailings for celebrities.

There would be an Excel with their original name in the first column, and their stage name in the second column.

Interesting to read.

Because we'd all be starting singing Bohemian Rhapsody with each citation of his name...

Anecdotal aside: I refer to the creator of the Lambda Calculus as “Alonzo” most of the time. When I'm in the mood for tongue-in-cheek, I might even call him “Saint Alonzo”. He is, after all, my second hero after Leonhard Euler.

This is mistaken.

Galli meant "castrado/castrated"

There is consistent effort apparently to hide this fact for it relates powerfully to the realities of "Galilee" and what it means to be "Galilean" and where that all really was.

In Hungary it's Galilei.

tl;dr for many of the same reasons we don't use Linus's.

I wonder what the expression "one whose name must not be spoken" really is about. Why are there such things or people, or are there?

Recently I've noticed a name which must not be pronounced in vain is "Alexa". If you talk about her she always interrupts with a lengthy diatribe. It has lead to a situation in my family where we speak like "Why don't you ask "you know who" to play that song for you?"

Afaik a name was/is believed to have the power to summon a supernatural being that it identifies. God and the devil both have a dozen or more euphemisms. (I've also heard about a rather non-Christiany belief of ‘true names’ having command over some beings, but not sure that it's not a modern fantasy invention.)

Dunno about material beings, but hiccups are believed in some places to be caused by someone remembering you.

It was absolutely a thing, and the best example is that the old Indo-European word for bear is eradicated in Northern European languages, because it was thought that the true name of the animal would summon it, and bears were not something you wanted around.

So instead of using the taboo name, everyone used the noa name for the animal, a euphemism, which is why "bear" actually means "the brown one". In Slavic languages, a common euphemism the "the honey eater" - "medved".

The original word exists in Southern European languages, "ours" in French, "orso" in Italian, coming from "ursus" in Latin, and "arctos" in Greek.

Another example is the word for wolf, which exists in that form in most European languages (wolf, ulv, vlk, lobo), but in Swedish the common word is "varg", which is a noa-name, a euphemism, meaning cattle-killer. "ulv" still exists in Swedish, but is seen as an archaic fairy-tale word

There is also the French saying: "quand on parle du loup, il sort du bois" [1]. Literally "when you speak of the wolf he comes out of the woods", known in English as "speak of the devil".

__________

[1] Also: "... on en voit la queue" or "le nez", i.e. "you see his tail" or "his nose".

Same in Hungarian (a Uralic language). Wolf is "farkas", lit. the tailed one, and deer is "szarvas", lit. the horned one. Both used to have true names but became taboo and got lost.

Interestingly Estonian might be nowadays an exception to the trend you mentioned and used the other names earlier. People call wolves and bears respectively "hunt" and "karu" instead of "susi" (the same as to what the Finns use primarily I think) and "mesikäpp" ("honey paw" which has strong connotations to "likes to eat honey") nowadays.

> ‘true names’ having command over some beings, but not sure that it's not a modern fantasy invention.

Which made it a great title for one of my all-time favorite SF novellas by Vernor Vinge. The connection was that if you were doing stuff you weren't supposed to be doing and the authorities found out who you were in the real world, you were toast.

Really good story even if it's pretty old at this point.

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