Quote:
Originally Posted by wodin
I used to have a brother-in-law whose first name was E.R. (uh maybe without the periods?), it was the name he was given at birth, and was on his birth certificate like that.
He used to tell all sorts of stories about the bureaucratic hassles he had over that.
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I just have one first name and I've had problems with that in the past with bureaucrats insisting I should list my middle initials/name.
My last name starts with "van" and the second part is quite hard, even for a lot of Dutch people. When studying in the UK teachers couldn't pronounce it, when returning work I was the only one who they called by the first name. The "van" is also slightly problematic. I once had to book a flight back to the Netherlands because my grandmother had died and first I had to have a discussion with the girl at the travel agency that "van" was separate from the rest of my surname, then that it was all lower case letters and then I had to wait for almost an hour because my name was too long for their system and the tickets had to be arranged through main office. Spending the morning at the travel agency wasn't high on my want-to-do list just after I heard my grandmother had died!
After that whenever it was possible, eg when ordering a book or dvd, I just gave my last name without the "van", that was much easier.