• Registered: 2022-01-21
  • Posts: 1,588

Topic: Why do they do it?

I have three given names.

For some things I use just the first initial, like signing for a delivery, followed by my surname.

However for anything formal, I use three initials followed by my surname. I never ever use "just the first two".

Yet I have found, over the years, that some people are unable or unwilling to copy my name from one document to another.

For example, more than once, I have written a letter, signed with three initials and my surname, with my three initials and surname below my signature in capitals for clarity, and the reply has just the first two initials and my surname.

Why?

Once, in the 1970s, I worked somewhere and, from time to time, I wrote a letter out in longhand as a draft, for it to be typed on the employer's stationery. The person doing the typing would later bring it to me for signing. The lady who normally typed letters for me had always typed all three of my initials. One day, she had had a lot on from her core work as a senior secretary, so the letter got typed by someone else.

She had omitted the initial of my third given name.

I politely mentioned this and was amazed when she said that the lecturer at her typing course at the local college had told her to only use the first two initials if someone had more than two. Fancy that being taught in a college!

It just seems strange to me that some people, but not everybody, seem to think it is reasonable or even desirable to not include more than two initials.

I am genuinely puzzled by this phenomenon.

William

2 Reply by GB

  • GB
  • GB
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  • Registered: 2022-01-22
  • Posts: 351

Re: Why do they do it?

I've always found just one to be sufficient, and have never felt the need for more. However a country called Ukogbani, does sound quite exotic.

  • Registered: 2022-01-21
  • Posts: 1,588

Re: Why do they do it?

Oh, people have told me that they have one name and that is sufficient, that two is enough to identify someone, that two is enough for anybody, that someone could have twenty-six given names - one for each letter of the alphabet.

("First two" is not necessarily sufficient to identify someone - for example if driving licence and insurance certificate do not have exactly the same name on them)

But those points are not the issue.

The starting issue in this thread is why some people deliberately, in replying, recording in records, and so on, do not reply to, record, or whatever, the name of someone as it was stated by someone else, but choose to reply to, record, or whatever, an edited version.

What is the mindset for someone doing that, not what reasons he or she states to try to justify their action if their error is pointed out and they are asked to correct it.

William

  • Joe
  • Joe
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  • From: Cornwall
  • Registered: 2022-01-23
  • Posts: 144

Re: Why do they do it?

In some instaces it may depend on how many fields are available on the computer, but in general there needs to be a limit.

What about those kids who are now adults and were named after all the players in football teams? Some would have 22 initials, one hell of an anagram.

I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure.
  • Registered: 2022-01-21
  • Posts: 1,588

Re: Why do they do it?

People need to design software competently.

Regarding the children with 22 names, it is their name, as registered.

I remember reading once of a woman, upon learning that her husband had registered their newly born daughter with eleven footballer names, went to her mother's house, taking the girl with her.

It was resolved by the registrar agreeing to reregister the girl with two conventional girl names.

Someone told me once that one of his relatives had had three given names and had habitually used just the first two, and that when he died intestate the application for letters of administration had to be worded as (here I am using made up names as examples) Albert Brian Charles Smith, also known as Albert Brian Smith, ...

This is because his name on his birth certificate would not be the same as on, say, his bank account, so the High Court would need to decide whether the bank account belonged to the same person as did the birth certificate.

William

  • Registered: 2022-01-21
  • Posts: 1,588

Re: Why do they do it?

Actually, I don't think there will need to be a limit in future.

Unicode Inc. is using two fields, given and given2, where both of them may contain one or more spaces. So, for example, a first name such as Mary Jane can be accommodated, as could indeed the 22 footballer names, one in given and 21 in given2.

Whether programmers will do other than just use the first character of given and of given2 or use the first character and each character that follows a space remains to be seen. I suppose a lot depends uopn whether an employer has a culture of wanting good software, recognizing that writing good software takes time, or whether the employer has a culture of insisting on speed speed speed and threatening. staff with no job if not done by Friday.

It is amazing how many managers do not act in accordances with the 1908 findings of Yerkes and Dodson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law

William