At least it’s not the other way around.
I love living in Quebec, because my last name has many spelling variants, and all English-speaking people think they know how to spell it and fail miserably. Francophones, who have never heard of it, ask. And pay attention, interestingly enough.
I’ve worked with some international students that only have a first name on their university identification (ID card, in the student directory, etc). I can’t imagine all the bureaucratic hassles they must deal with, in addition to what anyone who has to enter their data in a computer must deal with.
Not me but I guy I used to work with…
He is from India and his name is -
First name = (something Indian)
Last name = Dave (pronounced Dah-vay)
Needless to say, in America, he finds it easier to be “Dave Something”. However, official records are just a pain.
In a rare moment of serious reflection, I was wondering if the problems are worse in (er) less cosmopolitan parts of the country… here in Boston, there are loads and loads of people with non-Northern European names, and I think it makes people a little more sensitive to specific spelling and unusual names…
They just want you to know that they didn’t skip a block by mistake.
In the military, we’re pretty anal about filling out forms. (Especially the forms for security clearances - man, those are a pain in the ass.) Blank responses are not valid, so we fill blanks with things like N/A, none, unkn, and, yes, NMN.
I thought I was the only one who knew the plural of doofus was doofi!
We’ve been reading FoxTrot, I see!
~Ferry
That I understand. Guess I should’ve been specific. Our forms are very straightforward, no separate blocks for first, middle, last. The whole name goes in the same block.