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Comment by polymatter | Hacker News Reader

I had a similar problem. I have a Brazilian name which means I have multiple middle names which normally means it can't fit in the required space.

When I renewed my UK Passport they just decided to lose one of my names. I was furious, but it became clear I'd need to go through administrative hell to correct it, and I needed the passport at the time.

Some time later, I've just given up on having my full name. I prefer just to give out a firstname lastname and ignore my middlenames. Its just far too much hassle to go through. As far as I am concerned, I have an external name which fits in ASCII and complies with anglo-centric formulae and an internal name which doesn't.

Thats just my personal choice though. My sister is defiant and managed to get her full name on by demanding that it was an unhyphenated triple barreled surname.

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Is what your sister claimed sort-of correct anyway? An English middle name is generally a given name that can perfectly well be totally unrelated to family history.

It's my understanding that Brazilian (and Portuguese) "middle names" are usually if not always family names, are they not?

Insisting that they are part of your surname sounds like it might be the easiest way to get it accepted - it is common enough in Europe to have surnames with spaces. E.g. a Dutch surname like "Van der Vaart", or "Van Helsing", so it's quite likely various agencies etc. run into that often enough.

It's quite usual to have two family names, one from your mother's side and another from your father's. Usually the father's family name comes last, but it's by no means a rule, more of a social norm (and somewhat fading).

Additionally, it's also perfectly reasonable to have two or more "first names".

The consequence of all of this, and having four names myself, is that I'm always confused what I'm supposed to fill in as my first and last names. I end up using just my very first and very last, but i always feel like I'm being disrespectful towards my mother's family for the omission.

Something similar used to be common with the english too. My great-great-great-great grandfather was "Thomas Tindall Gore", and Tindall was his mother's maiden name. This sort of thing was quite common all throughout the 1700's and 1800's, but seems to have went out of style in the last hundred years or so.

I actually assumed, well into my teenage years, that people's middle names were their mother's maiden name, as that's the case for me, my sister, and my cousins.

Another interesting one I would see a lot is <mother's father's name> <father's father's name> <last name>.

For example, My dad was Charles Marvin Gore. His mother's father was Charles Maltbie. His father's father was Marvin Gore.

I don't think I ever saw the two modes combined though, so no example of a Charles Marvin Maltbie Gore. Although that is just in my family. It might have happened in others.

As the sibling comment says, yes she is sort-of correct. Our names are in the format:

So its kinda like a family name, but its not like everyone in our family will have the same family names. My cousins don't share any names with me as they are named after different people.

It causes trouble insisting they are all part of your surname. She recently had issues because the officials dealing with her medical exams assumed only the last name was a surname. So she had call and find someone with the necessary authority and present her birth certificate to get them to cancel the previous transcripts and issue new ones under the correct name.

I have a similar but different problem--I have 3 names, but I go by my middle name. Every form that I have to fill out has a "First Name", "Middle Initial", and "Last name" section and I cringe. I eventually just dropped my first name completely and now fill things out with my middle name in the "first name" section and skip the initial as if I don't have a middle name.

Except for my driver's license which the government insists match my birth certificate. Which hasn't been too much of a problem except always having to tell cops my name is "David" when I get pulled over. Recently, though, the TSA has been getting all stressy if you don't have your exact name on the boarding pass. I've still been obstinately refusing to do that–They just keep telling me "next time use your real name". Yeah, ok.

I do wish the world accommodated me better, but I know I'm an outlier and don't expect it to.

Brazilian here, and I repeatedly have the same problem. To complicate matters, my documents have my middle name as a first name, which means officially I have two first names. When I went to get a driver's license in WA, the system would generate a bad license ID because of that, and they had to do some manual patching or something to make it work.

I also have two last names, which makes it a pain every time someone asks for my last name. I always have to explain I have two of them and sometimes people are puzzled by that.

If I stay in the US indefinitely and eventually get citizenship, I think I'll change my name and drop one of the first names and one of the last names :P

Indeed. Brazilian names can be huuuge, with lots of parts. It's really rather amusing, when someone applies for a credit card or whatnot, to see what parts the credit-card company decides to include/initialize/exclude to fit. It's pretty much up to their bank's whim.

But in Brazil, I've never once heard anybody complaining that it offended their heritage, or that their "name means everything" -- it's obvious and common sense there's only so much space on the card.

Similar pain here.

As Portuguese that lived in a few European countries, I already had my share of having to choose names to leave out of cards due to lack of space.

Additionally it is always fun (not) when you need to use one of those cards together with the ID card, while trying to convince the clerk or police that although some names are missing it is your card.

Sounds like something just got messed up when they renewed it. I'm from the UK, and have two middle names, both of which are on my passport and drivers license.

Its a space limitation. I have three middle names. My middle names take up 26 characters so I think its quite reasonable that it doesn't fit given that most people don't even have a middle name in the UK. I remember I needed to attach extra paper to write it all out on my passport application.

On my Passport they lost my last middle name. On my Drivers Licence they intialised two of my middle names but kept the first one. One bank dropped all my middle names and another decided to initial them all. I think its up to the particular admin on the day how to deal with it. I'd much rather it was consistent across everything, because that way "What is the name on your credit card?" doesn't end up being a trick question.

I have a slightly worse problem: two (long-ish) last names. I can't legally omit one of them.

I sympathise. If it causes you trouble, consider changing your name. If you're in the UK you can do it easily by deed poll.

There are too many things published with my name on them, it wouldn't help me very much.

I'll just have to continue correcting documents :)

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