Jennifer Zero and other bad surnames

Husband Jennifer Null (Jennifer Null) before the wedding warned about the problems in everyday life, if she takes his name. She imagined that she was waiting - her husband's family was constantly joking about this. And it is not surprising that the problems began immediately after the wedding.

“We moved to a new house when we got married, so I started buying air tickets almost immediately, as I changed my last name,” says Jennifer Zero. Buying tickets turned out to be a daunting task: after all the forms were filled out, for some reason, they returned an error message (the "Last Name" field is not filled, try again).

The girl had to call the airline to buy tickets, but the problems did not end there.
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“I was asked what question I was calling on. When I tried to explain the situation, they replied that this could not be. ”

But to any programmer to tears it is clear why the surname Zero can cause problems with the database. The reason is that the value "null" is often entered in the DB field as an indicator of the lack of data. And then, and now, system administrators are trying to solve the situation for people who are actually called Zero. The task is rare and not so simple .



Now Jennifer Zero is a working mother, she lives in southern Virginia, and her troubles did not end with the purchase of airline tickets. For example, she cannot enter personal data on a US tax administration website. When she and her husband came to a new city, there were difficulties with the registration of utility bills.

Before the birth of the child, Jennifer worked as a replacement teacher, she was called to school if necessary. Notifications could be received by phone or through an online service. But the website never worked for Jennifer Zero — and she always had to assign shifts over the phone.

“It feels like I still do a lot of things the old way,” she says. - On the one hand, it is unpleasant if this happens at the wrong moment. But more often it’s just a funny story, which is nice to tell friends. We usually joke about it. ”

“Zero” is not the only last name that is difficult for computer processing. There are many others. In a world that relies more and more on databases, the lives of people with such surnames are becoming increasingly difficult.

Some people have only one name, there is no first name and surname. Others have one letter name. Problems with such names have been reported for a long time . Imagine the feelings of a simple Hawaiian woman, Janis Keihanaikukaukahihulhee'ekahunaele (Janice Keihanaikukauakahihulihe'ekahaunaele), who for many years tolerated that her last name of 36 characters does not fit into a passport and driver's license. She wrote a complaint - and the authorities initiated an upgrade of the computer system .



In computer terminology, such cases are called borderline - unexpected and problematic situations for which the system is not designed.

“Every couple of years computer systems are updated or changed, they are tested on a set of data — names that are widely represented in society,” explains programmer Patrick McKenzie. “They are not always checked for borderline cases.”

Mackenzie has his own interest in computer system failures when handling rare names. He compiled a list of pitfalls that programmers encounter when developing databases that store user names.

He began this work for a reason. For most people, his last name sounds normal, but not in Japan, where he lives. There, the majority of surnames consist of several characters, usually up to three, and the four characters in the family name are already a rarity. Patrick has eight characters in his last name, so very often one has to dodge with printed forms that are designed for four characters.

“Computer systems are often designed on the model of such forms. Every year, when filling out the tax form, I indicate my name as “Mackenzie P”, because there is no space for additional letters. ”

Mackenzie tried as best he could, he even rewrote his name using the katakana phonetic system - a graphic form of the Japanese syllable alphabet, which is used to write words of non-Japanese origin. But in the bank after updating the computer system, support for the katakana disappeared. For Japanese users, this was not a problem, but Mackenzie temporarily lost the ability to use the site.

“In the end, they had to send a request in a paper letter from my office to the corporate IT department so that someone could manually edit the database,” he says, “before I could use any of their applications.”

The problem with computer representation of names, border situations and foreign names with unusual characters is global in nature and is discussed at the level of the W3C consortium .

"I think the situation is getting better, including due to the fact that developers have become more aware of the problem."

However, people like Jennifer Null still have a lot of difficulties in their lives. Some suggest changing the name. But Jennifer is not one of those. She had already changed her last name when she got married - and made her choice. “It’s very unpleasant when this happens,” Jennifer Null admits. “But I kind of agreed with that.” Now I'm used to it. ”

See also:
An employee by the name of Zero brought down corporate software
(The surname Null is a classic of humor, another classic case says that an employee by the surname NaN received a huge salary because of the program glitch).