[throwaway40324]

Names can be extraordinarily long or just a single char. Theres a lot of stories where serious issues are caused by software systems and their implementation of handling names.

To answer your question: I dont know if theres a good single spec to follow.

[apozem]

Length is such a problem. Growing up, I knew a girl whose last name was DiMichaelangelo. It couldn’t even fit on a Scantron for tests.