Different countries do things differently. Some have different alphabets, or just additional characters. Some allow middle names as separate from first or family names, while some instead do not not allow middle names, but instead allow multiple first names and/or family names. In some countries its normal to get your mother’s maiden name as a middle name or as a second part of your first name, while other contries again dictate that any and all first names should be commonly recognized as a first name and not easily mistaken as a family name.
Does all this lead to people having different “offical” names in different countries? How do your passports look if name structure or characters aren’t the same in the different countries? Does it make a difference if you were born multinational, or if you obtained it later in life?


I technically have three names (given name, patronymic, family name). I’ve lived in a few countries, all with different name systems. I’ve found that this is the best easiest rule set to avoid trouble:
-.Of course, this is just what worked best in my specific situations, other countries may be different.
And also, I don’t care at all about my legal name (all my friends call me by another name anyways) so I’m fine dropping a part of it, the goal here is to just make interactions with governments, banks, etc as smooth and easy as possible.
A lot of good insights there! Thank you for sharing. First and family name is probably the way we’ll, we just need to agree on the family name.