It seems like a weird(though probably understandable in light of two different sets of procedures evolving independently) that the standards for name changeability and those for passport issuance differ.
If the system were given a hard look it seems like any name they’d accept as a change they’d issue a passport for; and any name they’d refuse a passport would not pass muster for a legal change.
I’m guessing it also wasn’t an issue for Phillip K Dick.
There’s just… so many things wrong about the passport-issuing bureaucracy having standards for people’s names at all.
As far as the army goes, fine, in his case it was a choice and an immature one, yes. But “Fu” can also be a perfectly normal name in some cultures. Does the army actually have a policy of making people change their given-at-birth names? Or not letting letting a Fu change their last name if they marry a Kennard after enlisting?
I worked with someone in the UK whose name was Richard Head, I bet his school days were miserable.
I had some friends who go married and hyphenated their last names - His last name was Park and her’s was Ng. Of course they went with Park-Ng, wouldn’t you?
It could have been worse.
Isn’t this what happens to convicted felons in many US states? Specifically the loss of voting rights. Forget Gilead. Forget the 1776 revisionists. Let’s go back to medieval times! Not the theme restaurant, the times when if you lived to be 35 years old you were lucky.
Under some versions of civil death, there was no penalty for executing someone who’s (civilly) dead already.
or
In Australia there was in recent times a politician named Richard Face.
We had Dick Braine as leader of UKIP a few years ago, and now we’re back to nominative determinism.
In Germany this was called beeing Vogelfrei (free as a bird) for some reason i forgot.
There was a State Farm Insurance agent who worked near my childhood home in Wichita by the name of George Tittsworth. Apparently he was a very good pianist.
So is his first name Fu- with the hyphen?
Aren’t names in passports usually written with the first name and surname separate?
Judging from the way it was spelled I would have assumed it was pronounced “foo-ken-nerd”, none of which seems problematic except possibly for the “nerd” part.
Also, fuck people who judge names, regardless of whether those names are assigned by parents or by one’s self.
iceland has the fix for that
so far as i understand, you’re only allowed to pick your kid’s name from the approved list.
Merchant Navy joke #1278
I work for Cunard.
Mate, we all do.
That was my initial pronunciation too, but then the story shifted me to thinking it was “fookin’ 'ard.”
