>>notok+(OP)
Interesting article, I've had some similar (though significantly less severe) experiences with having ä and ß in my names, it seems many U. S. companies are just unwilling/incapable of going beyond ASCII.

The government being this sloppy at getting accents right is surprising, I would expect them to value accuracy and a clean paper trail when handling names.

http://archive.today/5h4v2

>>comrad+3b
> Is their database a 7-bit database?

Ascii is 7 bits. What people think of as 8-bit ASCII is actually code page 437, the alternate characters added to the PC BIOS in the original IBM PC. Like UTF-8 it uses the most significant bit in a 1 byte ASCII char to determine if it should use a character from ASCII if 0 or the extended 437 characters which includes ü if 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437

>>pavel_+Yb
@patio11, I realize "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names" [0] does disclaim comprehensiveness, but gendered last names seem a worthwhile inclusion.

0. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

>>pavel_+qi
Let's not equate Cyrillic to Russian. Cyrillic is also a script of multiple other languages, including Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Serbian (when Serbs feel like using it).

Answering your question - basically, this comes down to the traditions of the languages.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Макконахи,_Мэттью

https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Метью_Макконагі

https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Матю_Макконъхи

https://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Метју_Маконахи

https://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Мэттью_Макконехи

>>dale_g+Tp
There was a hilarious one in Ireland where we were desperatly searching for a prolific polish criminal named "Prawo Jazdy". Which means... driving license.

https://www.joe.ie/news/garda-spent-two-years-searching-for-...

>>Quantu+Br
James/Jacob is even messier! They come from the same name, but are in English treated as completely distinct names. In the New Testament Greek, you get Ἰακώβ (iakob) used for Old-Testament-era Jacobs (primarily the one later given the name Israel, but also the one in Matthew 1:15–16), and Ἰάκωβος (iakobus) used for New-Testament-era Jameses (two of Jesus’ disciples, and one of his brothers). English Bibles have ended up using Jacob for the old and James for the new ones, but not all languages maintain the distinction: in Telugu, for example, they’re all యాకోబు (yakobu).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_(given_name)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_(name)

>>notok+(OP)
As a software engineer born outside the anglosphere, I am immensely cautious to have every formal record of my personal details byte-identical.

Obligatory read: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

>>mcv+Ze1
In NZ someone I know has a single name. Due to the constraints of the system, effectively he has no first name and only a surname. In things where a first and last name are required (I think the drivers licence system needed it), he uses "citizen" as a filler.

It can go the other extreme too of course: https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360848808/worlds-longest-nam...

>>int_19+rM
Interesting, I thought Russian did that for the same reasons as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon-shiki system does, which also uses "si" instead of "shi" for シ.