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Comment by rco8786 | Hacker News Reader

My last name is a popular Irish name with an apostrophe in it. I have tons of issues with my name in forms. I'm basically a walking SQL injection detector.

But also I've started to drop the apostrophe in most of my online profiles and things. So I think we're starting to see the end of apostrophes in people's names, thanks to some fun oddities of the internet and common database technologies.

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Reminds me of the story of the French politician with a forward slash in their name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeline_K%2FBidi?wprov=sfla1

I can't find a reference anywhere, but I remember reading that when their child was born they couldn't process a birth certificate with the name containing a slash, so it was changed to a dash for the kid.

Reading the article, I'd guess the introduction of the slash was introduced because the actual letter (Ꝃ) wasn't available on earlier technology like a typewriter. Funny that the "fix" caused problems with the next generation of tech.

At least they had the excuse of being named - whoever came up with `/e/OS` as the name for a phone OS in the age of the internet needs a strong word!

1. https://e.foundation/e-os/

Slightly related thought, but I have a popular Slovene name with letter Ž (pronounced as g in mirage) in it. Since I started living abroad, I use the letter Z, even when introducing myself. It often throws people off guard completely and it is much easier to use just Z.

So I guess some cultural aspect of names will also disappear, I know I want I children to have a bit more "international" names.

> But also I've started to drop the apostrophe in most of my online profiles and things. So I think we're starting to see the end of apostrophes in people's names, thanks to some fun oddities of the internet and common database technologies.

This is a bugbear of mine! It's so frustrating that this is the easier path. Technology should make our lives better, not bend us to it's limitations!

No criticism on you of course, I'm as guilty.

Do you also get the apostrophe get mangled into something like `'` ?

All the time!

Suppose your name was "Néill" then you could just change it to b"N\xc3\xa9ill".

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