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 🙏

Ha, yes I did.

I wrote Penelope first but thought the two p’s might have been confusing, but didn’t think my change to Phoebe all the way through.

Let me go hang my head in Greek shame.

Following with interest

As another example of it being difficult, I work with event registration systems a lot and very few of them have diacritic capabilities despite being global companies. Badges / forms / access passes etc all default to ‘normal’ spellings

@Anonymousmember667 I have a name with a letter with a diacritic, but my birth certificate doesn't show it. No documents ever show it.

For example, say the name was Éloïse, but the BC says Eloise Claire Smith. Nobody cares, not even me.

Although her parents persisted with the accent nobody else did. When she got to nursery and school it was always spelled without the accent on it and I don’t think she uses the accent now. She is known to her friends by a nickname. sums it up.

Interesting - it seems that the Irish passport office do indeed issue passports with fadas on them. However, Aer Lingus’ booking system doesn’t allow them!

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/fada-aer-lingus-booking-system-29936024?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

(nb Aer Lingus don't insist the passport match the booking in terms of fadas so it’s resolved pragmatically. Maybe they've also updated their IT since the article, you never know).

Irish passports contain the diacritics/ accents on their names. It isn't an ICAO rule then is it? You can have diacritics/ accents on capitol letters in many languages. Whats strange is a native british name is not allowed on a british passport.

Sorry, are you in fact planning, with aforethought, for your child to go through a perpetual bureaucratic fight with everyone in England for the rest of her life? As in, this is literally your plan and apparent dream for her?

Pregnancy hormones are an absolute trip! Put down the GDPR and back away from the diacritics. When people say choose your battles they don't mean plan them in from a list. 😂

Yes I read it and its a document specific to passports and thats the rule for UK passports then, but, if its an ICAO regulation, How do other countries passports contain names with them?

Interesting that you assume that the UK government are wrong and it can’t be an ICAO rule, rather than accepting that maybe the Irish government has chosen a different approach.

In any event it actually says ICAO standards, not rules and cross refers to a transliteration table.

Protest all you like but you can’t deny the fact that UK passports do not allow them and ICAO discourage them.

Are you still talking about Chloé?

No. It’s an interesting unusual example of a non-bogstandard character used internationally as a unit symbol though.

(‘interesting’ to a few people, anyway ‘)

I think she was talking about Siân.

Nobody ever claimed it was anything other than a document specific to UK passports?

Lol just asking the question and so far I seem to only have two definitive answers.

1. that you can register on the birth certificate a name with diacritics/ accents in the UK.
2. That you cannot have a UK passport with a name with diacritics/accents.

that just leaves eveeything else 😂

I have a Zoë, no big deal at all. I choose to use the ë as it’s easy as pie, pretty, and stops it rhyming with Joe (we have a Joseph. See also Joe and Zoë Sugg). You can teach your child not to be uptight about it though. A lot of the time it’s not possible to include the diacritic - computer says no etc.

Quite a few Welsh names have accents - Siôn, Siân, Sïan, Gwenllïan, Llŷr, Nêst. These are included on birth certificates and used in every day life, but as others have said, they are not on official documents such as passports. Not fair in my opinion, its not like we're using foreign letters. Accents should be included on our documents. Siân x

I have an apostrophe think o’something lots of places can’t cope with that and it’s not even unusual. You can but I’d expect it to be routinely spelt without.

They're not. They might be in some areas, and it might be age dependent.

Yup - I've got an Irish name, so it's always spelled wrong and pronounced wronger. It... doesn't matter at all.

I have â in my name -it is on my birth certificate but not on official documents. Gripes my shit as I only have that name!

I personally know people with everyone of those names. Not everyone with those names have accents, but they are used and everyone should have their names spelt correctly - accented or otherwise. Siân x

I have taught thousands of children over the years. I'd say about half the Zoes I've come across have been Zoë and half Zoe.
There's no need to be snippy. You asked pp to "prove" people use Zoë, and she did so in the way she is able. She isn't your personal researcher.

My sister is called Zoë. She lives in France, even there, online forms make her just be Zoe.

I have a diacritic on my name and just checked my 1970s birth certificate, and it's not on there, even though it is in the format Firstname SECONDNAME. It's therefore not on my passport either (although that is FIRSTNAME SECONDNAME).

I've always used mine when handwriting my name (even in capitals for forms etc) and still do. I don't when typing though, although I definitely used to and I don't really know when I stopped using it - it's not in my work email signature. I'm so used to seeing my name both with and without the diacritic that I don't really notice it any more.

Both my work and personal emails are firstname.surname@ so I wonder if it was the wider use of email (which I don't think you can use diacritics in) that made the use without just look equally as normal to me?

No idea but coming from someone with a surname that’s Irish and has an apostrophe in it, think O’Donnell, literally 90% of websites and official forms don’t recognise having an ‘unusual character’ which gives me rage!