When @DanielRoyGreenfeld and I got married, I took the "Greenfeld" part of his name, and he took the "Roy" part of my name.
We thought it was a nice gesture showing the world that he belongs to me and I belong to him. It seemed like a kind, modern thing to do for each other as a 21st-century couple willing to start new traditions. It also allowed us to carry on both of our last names to the next generation. Our daughter's last name is the same as ours, "Roy Greenfeld".
Our original choice of Roy Greenfeld as the spelling has led to confusion:
- We get emails saying "Hi Roy" or "Hi Audrey and Roy" on a daily basis.
- Our mail sometimes gets filed under G for Greenfeld, and other times under R for Roy.
As developers, we know that if we don't fix this bug now, it'll be a lot worse later. Technical debt accumulates. In this case it's even getting passed on to our cute little one 🍼
Our Current Iteration
Our quest for a more system-friendly name has led to a fork in the road. Here are the two options we're waffling on:
Option A: Roy-Greenfeld (Traditional but Buggy)
Hyphenating seemed like the most common solution, so we tried it. The next day we waited at the hardware store for half an hour while they couldn't find our name in their system, just 10 minutes after they had entered it into their system.
Hyphens get turned into spaces in some systems, and removed from names in other systems.
Running into a name bug within a day of the change from "Roy Greenfeld" to "Roy-Greenfeld" meant we still had work to do.
Option B: RoyGreenfeld (The PascalCase Version)
With this option, we remove the hyphen and smash the names together, PascalCase-style.
It feels funny, but it seems like the natural next step.
You never know the results until they're deployed to production, so I've been changing my online profiles everywhere to "RoyGreenfeld" to see what happens.
Future Possibilities
We'll probably run into bugs and have to iterate further. Here are possible resolutions:
royGreenfeld (The camelCase Version)
This may reduce the chance of people mistakenly addressing Daniel as "Roy" in emails. The lowercase "roy" means it's less likely to be interpreted as a first name.
A lot of software insists on capitalizing the first letter of the surname, though.
Roygreenfeld (Like a Standard Surname)
Most last names in the United States have a capital letter followed by lowercase letters, so systems are good at handling that.
It doesn't solve the "feld" part getting mistyped as "field" though.
Roygreenfield (Easier to Spell but Longer)
Sure, it may be easier to spell, but it's now longer and likely to get truncated. 13 characters is a lot. Systems often truncate last names at 12 characters. Paper forms with those little lines between each character only have so much space.
Roygreen (Simpler but Still Confusing)
This version probably minimizes system errors. But it's prone to human error because it's not a common last name. It sounds like some guy named "Roy Green" rather than a surname.
Groynfeld (More Surnamey but Awkward)
To the American ear, this version sounds more like a surname, reducing human error. But it's embarrassing to say, so it's not a realistic option. And it's hard to spell. Let's just say it would probably be misspelled "Groinfeld" and be awkward.
Key Takeaways
- Systems are prone to programmer and human error.
- When you discover technical debt, iterate early and fast.
- Naming is hard.
- Naming yourself, your spouse, and your baby is even harder.
Your Challenge
Help us decide what to adopt as our surname, in a way that minimizes errors while preserving our family names as much as possible.
Seriously, @DanielRoyGreenfeld and I'll be grateful for any anecdotes you share in the comments below.
I'm particularly interested in hearing from anyone who decided on a combined name with their spouse.
Top comments (51)
My thought is Royfeld. It’s one word and the .com is available (obviously the most important reason to choose a name).
I like this because it's the first part of my surname and the last part of his, and it keeps the interesting "feldiness" quality. I bought royfeld.com.
Yay!!
greenroy.com too!
Definitely the option I would have gone for! 🤘🏻
This is the wholesome content I came to dev.to to see 😃 Why not mix it up with Feldroy? Seems cool and science-fiction-y.
There is something futuristic and 22nd-century about Feldroy. I could see our grandkids learning to walk on their smart walkers and having that last name. I bought feldroy.com.
Wait, did you actually change your name to Feldroy? 😮 This is wicked....after all the problems and questions posed to me that I've somehow manged to solve, this is by far the coolest and most unique that I will tell people about. Congrats on the new name!
Yep, we're in the process of changing it! It's a bit complicated with COVID-19 closures shutting down much of Los Angeles government, but we're starting with the things we can change, like online profiles and our website. Your suggestion was a huge help to us, and your little explanation was what tipped the scales toward us making the move to Feldroy, so thank you so much for that. 🙏🧡
+1 for Feldroy. Feels like the name of a hypothetical protagonist of a book by Aldous Huxley
Greenroy?
Similar convention to the name "Elroy" or "Conroy"
At least nobody in this mix will end up being named Brogan BamBrogan
I like it a lot...it came up in brainstorming but we hadn't considered it seriously until now. I bought greenroy.com.
I'll switch to greenroy if the next book we write together lists you first as the author. ♥️♥️♥️
If you decide to change tack completely and cause the most system errors possible, you could always change your surname to ’;DROP DATABASE
😉
xkcd.com/327/
Growfield combination of both names, does add that i and w in exchange for dropping the een. It could just be Growfeld as well since feld is german for field anyways but may be more likely to get misspelled. Symbolizes a new tomorrow of combined families.
This is beautiful and so clever. I love the symbolism! I found growfield.com was taken, but I bought growfeld.com.
I lost it at the "this is your chance to save our family from system errors" picture.
😂
I like
RoyGreenfeld.Thanks for the feedback, that's helpful as RoyGreenfeld looks a bit weird to my eye still when I see it in the Dev.to sidebar as I type. But we're trying it out to see if it grows on us.
I'm happy you liked the picture 😊
Haha, thanks for taking the time to share that. Gallant-King is an amazingly fun name, I love that.
What if they named a son Arthur?
They could also change King to Queen and name a daughter Victoria!
I liked how you and your husband changed your last name to show each other your love! Guess I will try this I will get married! 😂
I recommend against camelCase for family names.
A few years ago, on the first day of class, I'm calling roll.
...Davis, Edwards, Holdridge...
One student starts to look nervous.
...Vinton, Wendt, Wilson...
He's dancing in his seat.
...Zrust, and finally
deMayo
He relaxes.
And that is the day I explained the ASCII table to freshmen on their first day of college.
Great story! Okay, royGreenfeld is ruled out.
You both keep your own names: this merge feature doesn't bring any value to the software.
As for your daughter name, unless you can rollback the migration, you can still decide her last name by playing shifumi, which is both modern and bold.
roy_greenfeld
Feldroy?
Seinfeld. It still has the "feld" in it.
I came to suggest Greenroy (first choice) and Royfeld. I see those have already both been suggested, so just count this as my additional vote for either of those options!
This is a great post. Now we just all have to remember that the bug is not the name being used, but the systems that cannot handle expected input in name fields.
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