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by cybervegan 1020 days ago
I was wondering when someone would cite this: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

But since nobody else seems to have done so, I will. Globally, names don't follow any common format or concept at all that you can reduce to a formula. My takeaway is that it's best to have a free-format "full name" field, and another "preferred name" field so you can allow people to choose how to be referred to.

1 comments

Honestly, most apps don't need a full name. Just a preferred name is enough.

If you really need a full name, it'll be because you need it for a specific institution, like government or bank. In that case, you probably need the ability to provide a separate full name for each institution.