# Is changing my name to a name with a Scandinavian character “ø” in it a bad idea? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 13, 2024, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217 "2024-09-13T15:59:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/41 "2024-09-14T15:51:23Z")
IMHO blaming “the computer” is (most of the time) bullshit— the computer seems to work OK in other countries— and even in places like Iceland where you literally have to pick your name from a list they comprehend that not everybody was born in Iceland. > [@doreen](#): > > And the people I was dealing with didn’t know their numbers, any more than I know my medical record number when I go to the doctor. So I had to look them up by name. Yes, sorry if I was not clear. Of course nobody knows their internal database ID number, and you have to look them up by name. I meant that nothing breaks if the name contains an accented character. You still have to ask the person how to spell their name (because to find Ó Máille you start typing M–A–I–L–L–…) I have had to deal with lists of names, and on the printout they were in all caps with accents stripped. Like you, I was not responsible for entering them in the first place. I never had trouble figuring out who was who, though. Not saying I automatically knew how to _pronounce_ all the names, but there are ways to politely ask the person what their own name is and how they spell it… ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/42 "2024-09-14T16:02:08Z")
I was recently with my gf and her brother, registering for an event. The woman filling out the paperwork knew the three of us by our first names but not our last names. I was closest to her, so I told her my first name, last name. She then began filling out my gf’s first name, then _my_ last name, but my gf caught her and told her we had different last names (many friends believe we are married). She the began writing my BIL’s first name followed by my gf’s last name (after all they are siblings), but he caught her and explained that his sister continued using her married last name, so his last is different. All this complication was fueled by the event being alcohol related. I can’t imagine how it would have gone of there was an ø, an ã, or an è involved. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/43 "2024-09-14T16:02:08Z")
Given the advice in this thread not to do it, might I suggest checking if there is an earlier point in history where your name was spelled with “oe” instead? That is the historical origin of ø, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Orville\_mogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aeb1de/32.png) [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/44 "2024-09-14T16:03:46Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > The system turned him into “Ronly Bonly Jones.” Brilliant! ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/45 "2024-09-14T16:19:51Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > IMHO blaming “the computer” is (most of the time) bullshit— the computer seems to work OK in other countries— and even in places like Iceland where you literally have to pick your name from a list they comprehend that not everybody was born in Iceland. That’s a good theory. Reality doesn’t work so well. It’s one thing if you are dealing with a company where Bob is the owner, his wife Betty handles customer service and his brother in law Carl set up his computer. What about dealing with an insurance company like Horizon? You have a problem and get someone on the phone in India who is reading from a script to you. They don’t have any clue how to get to the computer people to get your umlaut in. How many layers do you have to get through to get it fixed? How many automated phone responses do you have to yell “representative!” at before you get it fixed? And then you have to deal with every claim submitted wrong by every provider. Multiply that with every company and agency you deal with everyday for the rest of your life. Some interactions will be trivially easy. Some will be rip your hair out frustrating. Dealing with it if that’s the name you were born with I can understand. Volunteering for that hassle by changing your name seems masochistic ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/46 "2024-09-14T16:56:10Z")
It’s not “blaming the computer.” It’s acknowledging that different computer systems handle non-standard characters in different ways. And whenever you need to interact with a computer system, you have no idea which method it uses. And that frequently creates a hassle. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/47 "2024-09-14T17:43:37Z")
All of this seems to be based on the American belief that accented characters are exceptional, when in fact they are normal in most languages that use this alphabet. It’s only because America has a few hundred million monolingual English speakers in control that they can come up with the absurd argument that ø is somehow in a different conceptual category from o. I use allchars.exe, freeware that’s been around for decades and plays nicely with Windows. It’s also true that having an accented character will cause difficulty, even for names like O’Malley that have been a part of the American landscape for the entire existence of the country (my Ó [Name] → O’ [Name] ancestors came to Delaware in the 1780s). I don’t mean to minimize the difficulties this will cause, or to say that my idealistic “should” has any weight against the actual “will.” I think people should accept the reality, but I also think they should at the same time acknowledge that the reality is an absurd, culture-specific fiction, created and maintained entirely because of culture, and not actual reality. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/48 "2024-09-14T18:39:34Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > handled well daily in Québec. My friend always uses their full hyphenated name (the second part is a tie to their father) and doesn’t like being called only by the first part and certainly doesn’t go by initials. > > They feel lost, disconnected, and disrespected whenever the issue comes up because they always have to settle for something that "isn’t actually their name\*. My wife and I just spent the last 10 years in Montreal (we’re both Anglos and I have a 60%-ish French language capability). We actually first met and got married in Montreal 20 years earlier and she actually paid to officially and legally take my last name. A few years later we left Quebec for another province. When we returned to Montreal my wife experienced nothing but hassles with her last name because the “system” “forgot” that she had officially taken my last name. This was a major pain as she has some significant health issues and requires regular and frequent hospital appointments. Most visits started with “guess what buggered up version of my last name they’re using this time”. Quebec’s bureaucracy is shit btw. Sorry for the hijack ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/49 "2024-09-14T18:40:45Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > All of this seems to be based on the American belief that accented characters are exceptional No, it’s based on the knowledge that US programmers didn’t account for anything beyond standard ASCII encodings and/or naming conventions used primarily outside the US. Good, bad, or indifferent, that’s the reality of many legacy systems still in use in US government, banking, insurance, and healthcare. It sucks, but it’s not going to change overnight. There are ways around the limitations, but they are not trivial and often cause delays and confusion. If that’s acceptable to the OP, then go ahead and make the change understanding that it’s not trivial or without obstacles. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/50 "2024-09-14T18:51:10Z")
Even my fairly simple name has suddenly developed obstacles in certain systems for some reason. I have a last name that starts with a capital letter, small letter then a capital letter (Scottish name). For some reason a couple systems have started putting a dash between the first small letter and the second capital letter. It’s inexplicable but caused some minor grief navigating these systems until someone informed me of the change. This just happened within the last year. I would do whatever I could to make systems navigation smooth. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/51 "2024-09-14T19:02:48Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > Slight hijack – I read of somebody who had single letter first and middle names. His given name was “R B Jones”, and those are not abbreviations (hence no periods). After somebody wouldn’t accept his name because they assumed they were abbreviations, he tried again with “R(only) B(only) Jones”. The system turned him into “Ronly Bonly Jones.” I knew a guy whose last name was Obie. He was used to spelling it out for people, so he would typically give it as “Obie…O-B-I-E”. Then he got something addressed to “[FirstName] Obobie”. 😄 ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/52 "2024-09-14T21:30:40Z")
I have a former coworker who changed his legal name to Megazone. I recently noticed that on many platforms he’s listed as MZ Megazone, because the software needs a first name. And he’s a pretty serious software engineer, but he still has these problems. ---
**Author:** ![Mnemnosyne](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mnemnosyne/32/3347_2.png) [@Mnemnosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mnemnosyne)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/53 "2024-09-14T21:38:57Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > This is the crucial issue. And it’s unsolvable. If you use non-standard format for your name, you WILL have problems. > > Many, many, many computer systems in many many places use software written by Americans, and many Americans have no concept that the rest of the planet exists. I do wonder if some of the things described in this post, and some of the other mentioned issues people with non-standard names encounter, might be grounds for a potentially successful discrimination lawsuit, **especially** for those people who use traditional names of their culture/ethnicity/etc such as the Indonesian ‘one name only’ situation CairoCarol mentioned. I have not heard or read about any such actions, and I did a couple quick searches and didn’t turn up anything, so I don’t know if it hasn’t really been attempted seriously or if it hasn’t been successful. Because it does seem like it’s discriminatory to me. Like, I could see how it might have been technically difficult in 1990 or something to cover all languages’ characters, but I don’t see much excuse not to allow all unicode characters (which I believe covers basically all languages in current use?) today in 2024. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/54 "2024-09-14T22:30:31Z")
Having a mono name is completely standard (insofar as there is no “standard”), and insisting it is not is a big “fuck you” to a lot of Indonesians, Indians, etc. Icelanders, already mentioned, also have no surnames, but they do have patronyms. Portuguese might have at least a couple of personal names and a bunch of surnames, any of which may themselves consist of multiple words. Need we go on? > **[Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names | ...](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/)** > > Classic essay about how software routinely bumbles human names. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/55 "2024-09-14T22:34:38Z")
> [@Mnemnosyne](#): > > but I don’t see much excuse not to allow all unicode characters (which I believe covers basically all languages in current use?) today in 2024. Do we _really_ want people to have names that are literally emojis? Maybe it’s inevitable. Heck, maybe it’s already happened. But we don’t have to speed up the process. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/56 "2024-09-14T22:45:51Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Heck, maybe it’s already happened. Or known as having formerly happened. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/57 "2024-09-14T22:52:25Z")
Prince already did that, among, I’m sure, many other people. (In fact, respect to him for coming up with something original and not picking something out of some computer character set.) Ps Don’t some people in e.g. Taiwan have some issues where a character used in their name does not exist in Unicode or any other standardized character set? Though Taiwan at least has introduced explicit legislation recognizing people’s (eg indigenous peoples) right to have non-Han-Chinese names altogether ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/58 "2024-09-14T22:52:26Z")
Gonna name my kid Ǫ̷̦̯͖̠̮̝͉̽͗͛̈́͐͠g̵͎̬͎͖̖͈̊̑̊̋̐̋̀̇̀̈́̍̀͘͜ͅľ̴̞͚̜͖͉̫͙͈̭͖̼̒̑̑ͅā̸̧̛̲̠̈̅͌̒̂́̌̚z̴̡̨̛̤͇̤͚͍͙̘͈̘͖̳̭͎͐̓̂͆͆̈̍̑͋̈̆͆͆́ ̷̢͈͇̠̹̃͘͝Z̶̨̗̜̙͍̹̕ȧ̶̢͔̮̣̳̞̼̘̖͍̮̲̹̒̀̂̐́̌̽̍̓̏̚͠͠ļ̸͓̱͔̖̙͎̪̞̲̦̠͍̝̯͗͑͆̀̀̏̈͗̀͝͝g̵̻̻̱̣̻̠͙̼̘̖̔̅̊̀͠ŏ̴̢̨̤̥̗̆̀͌̍̿̋̐͊͋͝͝. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/59 "2024-09-14T23:02:17Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Prince already did that, among, I’m sure, many other people. He didn’t legally change his name. **Mnemnosyne** suggestion was that _all_ Unicode characters should be allowed on the basis that anything else is discriminatory. Do that and you have a situation where anything in Unicode, from emojis to some combination of the couple-dozen whitespace characters, could be your legal name. ---
**Author:** ![Mnemnosyne](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mnemnosyne/32/3347_2.png) [@Mnemnosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mnemnosyne)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217/60 "2024-09-14T23:05:30Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Having a mono name is completely standard (insofar as there is no “standard”), and insisting it is not is a big “fuck you” to a lot of Indonesians, Indians, etc. It’s an acknowledgement of reality I think. This entire thread has many examples of precisely how there **is** in fact a standard and those whose name does not abide by it have problems because that standard exists. As I was noting, I think the standard is discriminatory, but that does not mean it does not exist. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Do we _really_ want people to have names that are literally emojis? Maybe it’s inevitable. Heck, maybe it’s already happened. But we don’t have to speed up the process. People name kids stupid shit without needing special characters all the time. I don’t feel as though that’s really an excuse to discriminate against everyone whose name is in a different language. Perhaps allowing something less than all of unicode might be adequate, but as a matter of simplicity, it seems apparent that all of unicode would cover all necessary use cases and is technically possible and simple to accomplish. Edit: Or perhaps even all of unicode **still** isn’t enough and my assumption that it would be was still insufficient. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-changing-my-name-to-a-name-with-a-scandinavian-character-o-in-it-a-bad-idea/1007217.md?page=4)