Names spelled with diacritics

[Anonymousmember667]

Apologies if this has been discussed or answered before but I have a question if anyone knows the answer, or who to ask or has any experience please?

So some names have diacritics, usually the name originates from another language other than english. Maybe the most common ones being Seán, Siobhán, Chloé, Zoë, René, Beyoncé etc etc.

Say for example, the name Chloé, Are there any issues registering this name with the diacritic on the “e” in England; on the Birth Certificate, with the NHS, in the school system, with banks, on her passport, driving licence etc etc.

Most people wouldnt know but Its simple to press the alt gr button + the letter to get most of these diacritics on a keyboard or hold the button on an apple keyboard, but do government systems and organisations systems generally support diacritic names?

Is there a right or expectation for organisations to spell your name correctly in England? Doesn't GDPR say this?

Is she destined for a lifetime of her name being spelt wrong or is she allowed to be a Chloé with an “é” !?

Thanks for any advise or experience anyone has 🙏

It depends. In the UK it mightn’t cause problems because people mostly think like you do and don’t see the difference, or alternatively they are forced to accept that systems aren’t set up for them.

On the other hand if I entered a word without the required accent into an online Irish language dictionary, it would most likely tell me the word isn’t recognised. Because it isn’t.

What’s the opposing view? That the loss of a diacritic is a misspelling? Yeah, ok. It is, if you want to be painfully literal. So what?

The OP asked about rules in the UK (actually “England”) for records of names that have diacritics and whether there’s recourse through the GDPR. I think we’ve established that there are no rules for exact reproduction and that data protection won’t help.

Minority native languages within the UK are being ignored. People are being ignored. That’s something bad imho.

Unfortunately you are right when you say there probably isn’t much recourse for OP at the moment.

Thanks for enlightening me, I based my comment on French where you never put accents on upper case letters, even if they do come with accents if written in lower case. Also I can't think of any French words with the accent on the first letter.

Don't you think thats really sad. I assume it doesn't consume you or you lose sleep over it mind!

Thats what I thought GDPR covered, things like this. That companies and organisations had a legal duty to store your information correctly and securely, i.e. the correct spelling of your name. And also, that you have a right to request them to rectify the incorrect information. I wonder has anyone with a diacritic name ever actually challenged any of these organisations.

I don't know what you think GDPR is but it's nothing to do with having 'rights' regarding name spellings.

There are some quite rude people on here.
I’ve also learnt a few things. Such as why some people pronounce Zoe - sorry not sure how to add umlautes- as ZO. I assumed they were being over familiar. I did know about Sean being pronounced differently with the fada. Again, apologies as I don’t know how to add the fada on my phone.
What irritates me is people taking a name like Sean and spelling it as Shaun, I understand way back when someone would have only heard the pronunciation and never seen it written, but surely that isn’t the case now.

@Daffodilsarefading
If you press down on a letter on the phone keyboard when typing — just for a second or two — a selection of accented forms will appear. You then choose the one you need.

Loads of Irish names have been anglicised so Shaun doesn’t really stand out for me. (Though it was only through MN that I learned that Shaun the Sheep is meant to be a pun. It doesn’t work in an Irish accent as shorn doesn’t sound like Shaun.)

Even surnames that are thought of as typically Irish, eg O’Sullivan, are anglicisations. The name is spelt and pronounced a bit differently in Irish (Ó Súilleabháin). In fact most Irish surnames today are anglicisations though some people do use the Irish forms and some use both forms regularly.

Élysées

I’m a Zoë. I use it where possible, but don’t stress about it where it isn’t. My parents actually used Zoé (search engines were not a thing in the 1960s, and they hadn’t checked it in a book). Neither diacritic is registered on my birth certificate. I opt for Zoë because that is how I pronounce it. Zo-ee, not Zo-ay.

I’ll also accept Sue (in Germany), Joe (from Chinese colleagues) and Mrs Cho (in Korea).

À
École
Été

@Whatpatternisthis , Why are you telling me this? I was responding to @MrsTerryPratchett 's post.

@MrsTerryPratchett ,it's the name of a company.

@SilenceOfTheTimTams , the difference between Sïan and Siân is significant, as is between Séan, Seán and Sean.

@GloriaMonday It was for the benefit of others really. You gave an example of the spelling Chloé, but hadn’t mentioned that this spelling is the French one and so is not typically pronounced the same as Chloë.

It was just in case anyone is taking inspiration from this thread. We are in Baby names 😊

OK. Thanks.

Names spelt incorrectly. Who or what is responsible then?

Agree re 'diacritics', I only ever use this expression at work when inserting them into online records and documents

Whatpatternisthis thank you.

GDPR protects your data. If the system can’t replicate non standard characters under the relevant jurisdiction then there’s no requirement to include them. Just to have a standard replacement.

Same with any other non standard characters for that jurisdiction.

But it is. In the languages that use them they are literally different letters sometimes and at the very least make a difference to how a letter is pronounced. It’s exactly the same.

’That’s how it is’ is a piss poor reason for continuing to do something, there was a time when that was ‘how it is’ for women to be not allowed to vote and black people to be owned as property.

My apologies I did misread it.

I really don’t think a missing é or ë or ẽ or whatever on a passport is remotely similar to the abomination of the Atlantic slave trade or to the pre-suffrage democratic exclusion of women.

Don’t you think the characters of all the languages native to the UK should be included as standard in UK systems though? Not just English. Names are one of the parts of language that persist too. For example, someone in Northern Ireland or Scotland mightn’t necessarily be fluent in Irish or Gaelic, yet still want to choose a name from their own heritage.

Isn’t the mutation of names very common though? I believe Sean (in its various forms) is part of the many and various ‘John’ family all originating from the Hebrew Yohanan. So mutating the spelling to an English phonetic transliteration doesn’t seem particularly extreme or unusual.

@Daffodilsarefading , I think you hold they key on a phone, or Alt codes on a computer.
ALT Codes for Foreign Language Letters with Accents

It's a diaresis not an umlaut.

I would like to agree but in my experience occasionally people don’t know how to pronounce it and pronounce it wrong e.g. my dental hygienist. It amazes me that someone British living in the UK would have never come across the correct pronunciation but it does happen.