Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

Re:Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts... by sundarurfriend on Saturday October 08, 2016 @10:17AM (#12666997)

I was in a similar situation as you (south Indian with only one name), and after trying to reason with their customer support, I found it easier to just use a fake name. If you think my real name is fake for no good reason, go ahead and have a fake name that "sounds real".

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Re:Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts... by lanna on Saturday October 08, 2016 @09:08PM (#12669419)

Honest question, same thing I asked above: are you able to fly? Did you ever attempt to fly to the US?

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Re:Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts... by sundarurfriend on Tuesday October 11, 2016 @12:59PM (#12686200)

(Not sure if you'll see this reply this late, but...)

The situation regarding ID's is a mess, but I believe I'll be able to fly, to the US or wherever, without issues (though I haven't done so yet).

The reason is that, India being a multicultural country, our central government that issues passports assumes a firstname-lastname pattern as well. And back when I got the passport, I didn't yet understand the firstname-lastname concept, and just followed the passport office employee's instruction: "don't leave that 'surname' field empty, that's for your father's name". I was curious why the heck someone would label that field as surname, but just took it as part of bureaucracy. And so, I have a passport to the name "myname fathersname".

The "mess" I referred to in the first line is about how different ID's have my name in different forms: let's say my name was David and my dad's is Michael. I have government issued id's that say my name is:

* David

* David M.

* M David Michael (yes, really)

* M David

(and possibly others that I'm forgetting)

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