I have a friend who, courtesy of some... let's say unique parents, was graced with multiple middle names and then multiple hyphenated (and unhyphenated) family names as her parents divorced, remarried and she moved between households. Then she got married herself and tacked her husband's last name onto the end of it.
Her legal name at this point clocks in at enough words and characters to not fit in most government databases. I've been tempted once or twice to create a similar but fake name to use as a test case for things that handle identity information.
Got a friend from Bangladesh that has the same problem. He went with first, last, and a string of middle initials. Still has problems. I often think we need a whole class in college on these type of issues. Probably right after the ethics class.
32. People’s names are assigned at birth.
33. OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
34. Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
35. Five years?
36. You’re kidding me, right?
I must know what case there is of this, and who exactly was the poor soul to stumble upon it...
It's not automatic a lot of places, these days. It's just a far simpler/faster process to get the name change done, and most companies and even government agencies won't raise a fuss over a woman filling out a last name that doesn't match her ID, because they'll assume she got married and took her husband's name.
My family came from South America to the US where people use their father's and mother's last names as part of their full name. Sure enough, that's what's on my green card, social security card, and driver's license. But since in real life we only use one last name, all of my non-government but still important stuff (college, work, etc.) only has one last name. And in real life only my family knows I even have another last name.
I've had countless problems with this and delays in getting stuff transmitted or done because people won't believe it's me or won't understand why I have a second last name (which I or my family never asked for when moving here). If just one extra word causes problems, I can't imagine what other cultures have to deal with! No wonder European immigrants a hundred years ago Americanized their names when moving here :-)
I tried to get two last names through marriage but California wasn't having any of it ...so my partner and I decided to shift names over and functionally have the same result. I probably saved myself your trouble - and I had a Spanish roommate in the past that had mail addressed to him with his two last names in 10+ different combinations - but that so many people have yet to tackle their misconceptions about names is frustrating :(
I do have two wonderful? related problems now though: I come across the occasional racist jerk that I can learn to avoid because they can't help Questioning my last name not matching my ethnicity, and I come across people that don't realize that my name in my other language hasn't changed (and that that's just not a Thing that happens in that culture). Yay names.
Her legal name at this point clocks in at enough words and characters to not fit in most government databases. I've been tempted once or twice to create a similar but fake name to use as a test case for things that handle identity information.