I've come around to arguing for "name" to just be a text field. No rules. But so many people seem to think their systems need surname, firstname, middle name, etc. all separated. I rarely see an actual need for this. If you want to know what to call them informally, have that be a separate field that you prompt them for.
> I've come around to arguing for "name" to just be a text field. No rules.
This is the morally correct solution, but governments run on forms and forms run on fields and fields were created by people who knew, as a matter of absolute ontological certainty, that names are FIRST MIDDLE-INITIAL LAST with a possibly blank MIDDLE-INITIAL. As for letters, if it isn't on Ethel's typewriter it doesn't exist.
If you want to protest the form, line forms over there, face-down, nine-edge first.
