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  1. #1
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    Sep 2013
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    Default Can You Use a Numeral in Your Name

    My question involves name change laws in the State of: Any state

    Is there at least one state in the united states where there is a person with a name with a number in it? And I do no mean the number is spelled out like 'Seven' but a literal like '7'.

    Why?
    I am working on computer systems dealing with citizen information and we are transferring accounts between systems. Our system can have letters and numbers in the name but the system we are transferring to only has letters in the names, no numbers. If I were to try to transfer an account with a name with a number in it, an error will occur. I am trying to figure out if the other system is faulty and should be changed to accept numbers or if there are no names with numbers in them and I do not have to worry about this aspect of the transfer. Note these systems will be used in many of the states so it doesn't necessarily matter which state allow numbers in names, if any do at all. Thank you very much!

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Can You Have a Number in Your Name

    This isn't a legal question, really. It's a programming question.

    It's perfectly legal to have a number in or for your name. Most famously, former NYT journalist Jennifer 8. Lee falls into that category.

  3. #3
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    Jan 2006
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    Default Re: Can You Have a Number in Your Name

    apparently there are some states laws that do not allow anything other than the 26 letters of the alphabet (it was stated this is a limitation imposed in California law). Whether those would be enforceable if challenged is a another question altogether but unless somebody wants to challenge them, the current laws are what the state will impose.

    Here is a link to a paper written by a Prof on the subject:

    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=1747858

    so mastabruce: what do you do with diacriticals such as acutes, graves, umlauts, and the many others that are an actual part of the name?

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Can You Have a Number in Your Name

    Quote Quoting jk
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    so mastabruce: what do you do with diacriticals such as acutes, graves, umlauts, and the many others that are an actual part of the name?


    I'm not exactly on the team doing the processing of names, we just do a hand off more or less. I know in the database, we store names (more or less) in unicode so that is all characters you can imagine. On the transfer, though, we can only pass letters, spaces, and periods. That is actually something I just assumed would work but I think it could break if we are accepting those characters somewhere.

    Thanks for the answer! That is helpful and your extra question gave me something to look in to.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Can You Have a Number in Your Name

    Quote Quoting LawResearcherMissy
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    former NYT journalist Jennifer 8. Lee falls into that category.
    Apparently she was not given that middle name at birth. She chose is when she was a teenager. Chinese lucky number.

    But is that her "legal" name. Did she change it in court or is she just using it as an assumed name?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Quoting mastabruce
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    On the transfer, though, we can only pass letters, spaces, and periods.
    What about apostrophes?

    Like in O'Hara or O'Reilly?

    You can certainly mess up somebody's records by leaving out the apostrophe.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Can You Have a Number in Your Name

    Quote Quoting adjusterjack
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    Apparently she was not given that middle name at birth. She chose is when she was a teenager. Chinese lucky number.

    But is that her "legal" name. Did she change it in court or is she just using it as an assumed name?

    - - - Updated - - -



    What about apostrophes?

    Like in O'Hara or O'Reilly?

    You can certainly mess up somebody's records by leaving out the apostrophe.


    Oh I didn't think about apostrophes! I did just check diacriticals and those go through the transfer fine. Apparently those are covered under "letters" (I was looking off a regular expression earlier thus the generic "letters"). I just checked apostrophes and those don't go through so thank you for that suggestion!

  7. #7
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    Default Re: Can You Have a Number in Your Name

    Quote Quoting mastabruce
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    Oh I didn't think about apostrophes! I did just check diacriticals and those go through the transfer fine. Apparently those are covered under "letters" (I was looking off a regular expression earlier thus the generic "letters"). I just checked apostrophes and those don't go through so thank you for that suggestion!

    and just what would you do with this guy:




    had he not changed his name back to what is once was?

  8. #8
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    Sep 2013
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    Default Re: Can You Have a Number in Your Name

    Ha, that's good. Unfortunately . . .

    "the Unicode Standard does not encode idiosyncratic, personal, novel, rarely exchanged, or private-use characters".
    so I don't exactly have to worry about it. I'll let the case workers step in there.

  9. #9
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    Apr 2013
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    Default Re: Can You Have a Number in Your Name

    The classic "Bad Assumptions About Names" post probably fits in perfectly right about here.

    http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/...e-about-names/

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