Then the first part is interpreted (in the US, anyway) as a middle name, not as part of the last name. I did run into a recently married woman who did that: dropped her middle name, moved her last to the middle, and used her spouse's last name.

More commonly, places that don't take hyphens tend to just run the two names together: Axel-Smith becomes AxelSmith.

Programmers can be really dumb.

[–] Malgas@beehaw.org 6 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

My mom didn't hyphenate, but she does include her maiden name when writing her full name, after her middle name. It never even occurred to me that that's uncommon.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 10 hours ago

So she writes 4 names? Does she put her maiden and married names both in the "surname" field? Or middle and maiden together in the "middle name" field?

[–] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

As someone who's mexican I encounter that more than one would think since I have 2 last names and it gets weird sometimes since I also have a middle name.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

God, the French. My friend has two first names, two middle, and thankfully only one surname.

[–] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 9 hours ago

Something that could happen in Mexico for a name is Juan Maria as a first, Guillermo David as a middle and Gonzales De Mercado as a last name. Technically 7 words and totally a thing but not common at all, anymore at least.