Baby Names That Won't Break Databases: A Developer's Guide to Naming Kids
Baby Names That Won't Break Databases: A Developer's Guide to Naming Kids
The Null Problem
There's a woman named Jennifer Null who can't book flights online. Not because Jennifer Null isn't a real name—it is, and she is—but because 'Null' is a reserved word in programming. Systems interpret her surname as 'no data' rather than her actual name. She's been trapped in digital purgatory for decades.
This isn't theoretical. People with names like Null, True, False, and even just unusual punctuation spend their lives fighting systems that weren't designed for them. Airline reservations fail. Government forms reject submissions. Bank accounts generate errors. The digital infrastructure of modern life assumes names will follow certain patterns, and when they don't, things break.
As a developer and a parent, I think about this differently than most. When naming my children, I wasn't just considering meaning and sound—I was considering how their names would interact with databases, forms, and systems they'd encounter for the next eighty years. This guide shares what I learned.
Because your child deserves a beautiful name AND the ability to book a flight without calling customer service.
Real Names That Break Systems
These aren't hypotheticals—these are documented problems.
Reserved Word Names
- Null - Interpreted as 'no value' by databases. Jennifer Null is famous for this.
- True/False - Boolean values. Systems might interpret as yes/no rather than names.
- None - Python's null equivalent. Same problems.
- NaN - 'Not a Number.' Probably rare as a name, but would cause chaos.
- Root - Unix superuser. Security systems might flag it.
- Admin - Administrative user. Same concerns.
Single-Character Names
People exist with single-letter legal names. Systems often reject them:
- Minimum length requirements (usually 2+ characters)
- Assumed to be initials, not full names
- Some systems literally can't process one-character inputs
The Apostrophe Problem
Irish and French names with apostrophes cause issues everywhere:
- O'Brien - The apostrophe breaks SQL queries if not escaped properly.
- D'Angelo - Same problem.
- N'Golo - African names hit this too.
These are real names from real cultures, and poorly coded systems have punished them for decades.
The Hyphen Headache
Hyphenated names face constant friction:
- Mary-Kate - Some systems accept it, others split it, others reject it.
- Jean-Pierre - Might become 'Jean Pierre' or 'JeanPierre' depending on system.
- Double-barreled surnames - Often truncated or corrupted.
Special Characters to Avoid
Characters that create technical problems.
High-Risk Characters
- Apostrophes (') - SQL injection vector. Breaks queries. O'Connor becomes OConnor or causes errors.
- Hyphens (-) - Inconsistent handling. Sometimes space, sometimes deleted, sometimes kept.
- Periods (.) - St. John becomes 'St John' or 'StJohn' or breaks entirely.
- Spaces in unusual places - 'Mary Ann' is fine; 'De La Cruz' challenges some systems.
Characters That Definitely Won't Work
- Emoji - Yes, people have tried. Systems reject them.
- Angle brackets (< >) - HTML interpretation issues.
- Quotation marks - Same escaping problems as apostrophes.
- Backslashes - Escape character in many languages.
- Semicolons - SQL statement terminators.
The Safe Set
Characters that work everywhere:
- Letters (A-Z, a-z)
- Spaces (in normal places)
- That's pretty much it for guaranteed compatibility
Length Considerations
How long is too long? How short is too short?
Minimum Length
Many systems require at least 2 characters. Single-letter names (which exist legally) often can't be entered. If your name is legally 'J,' you'll spend your life typing 'J.' or 'J ' or fighting validation errors.
Maximum Length
Database fields have limits:
- Many forms cap at 20-30 characters per name field
- Old systems might have 15-character limits
- Government systems vary wildly
Long names get truncated:
- 'Bartholomew' (11 characters) is usually fine
- 'Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff' (35 characters) will be truncated everywhere
- Hawaiian names can be quite long and face constant truncation
The Sweet Spot
Names between 3-15 characters face the fewest technical issues. This isn't a reason to name your child 'Jo,' but it's a reason to be aware that 'Bartholomew Christopher' might face occasional truncation.
Full Name Concatenation
Consider first + middle + last combined. Some systems have total character limits for full names. 'Alexander Bartholomew Christopherson' might overflow fields designed for 'John R. Smith.'
Case Sensitivity Issues
Capital letters matter—but not consistently.
The McDonald Problem
Names with capitals in the middle cause chaos:
- McDonald - Sometimes normalized to 'Mcdonald' or 'MCDONALD'
- MacArthur - Same issue with 'Macarthur'
- DeGrasse - Might become 'Degrasse'
- LeBron - Could become 'Lebron'
Systems Make Assumptions
- Some systems capitalize the first letter only: 'james' → 'James'
- Some systems uppercase everything: 'James' → 'JAMES'
- Some systems lowercase everything for storage, display as entered
- Some systems do nothing and accept whatever you type
The Problem With Assumptions
'Ian' works great. 'ian' gets fixed. 'IAN' might get 'fixed' to 'Ian.' But 'McDonald' shouldn't become 'Mcdonald'—that's not how the name works. Systems don't know this.
Recommendation
Names with standard capitalization (first letter capital, rest lowercase) face the fewest issues. This shouldn't limit your choices, but know that 'MacDonald' might appear as 'Macdonald' in some systems. Forever.
Unicode and International Characters
Non-ASCII characters create challenges.
Accented Characters
- é (Renée) - Sometimes stripped to 'e', sometimes causes encoding errors
- ñ (Nuñez) - Often becomes 'Nunez' or displays as garbage
- ü (Müller) - May become 'Muller' or 'M?ller' or worse
- ø (Søren) - Scandinavian names suffer in ASCII-only systems
Non-Latin Scripts
- Cyrillic - Russian names might be romanized inconsistently
- Chinese characters - Require romanization for many systems
- Arabic script - Right-to-left causes display issues
- Emoji - Just no. Systems can't handle it.
The Transliteration Problem
Japanese name '大輔' might become 'Daisuke' or 'Taisuke' or 'Daisupe' depending on system romanization rules. The same name, entered in different systems, might never match across databases.
Practical Advice
If using international characters, be prepared to also have an ASCII-compatible version. Renée might need to sometimes be 'Renee.' This isn't fair—it's a failure of systems—but it's reality.
Future-Proofing Your Name Choice
Preparing for systems that don't exist yet.
Systems Will Improve
Good news: systems are slowly getting better at handling name diversity. Unicode support is expanding. Character limits are increasing. More developers are aware of the 'Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names' problem.
But Legacy Systems Persist
Bad news: old systems live forever. Government databases from the 1970s are still in use. Banks run on ancient COBOL. Your child will encounter systems built before they were born—systems designed for 'John Smith,' not 'Siobhán O'Sullivan-García.'
The Pragmatic Approach
Choose names you love regardless of technical concerns—but be aware of what you're signing up for. 'Siobhán' is a beautiful name with a long history. It will also cause problems in some systems. Both can be true.
The Names That 'Just Work'
If you want to avoid technical friction entirely, these names cause zero database issues:
- Standard English spelling
- No punctuation
- 3-15 characters
- First letter capitalized, rest lowercase
- ASCII characters only
This describes names like: James, Emma, Oliver, Charlotte, William, Grace. Classic names that every system handles correctly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: Will apostrophes in names cause problems?
Yes, consistently. O'Brien, D'Angelo, N'Golo—all face issues. Poorly coded systems treat the apostrophe as a string delimiter and break. Well-coded systems handle it fine. The ratio is unfortunately skewed toward poorly coded systems. Expect some friction.
Q2: What about hyphenated names?
Less severe than apostrophes but still problematic. Some systems split on hyphens (Mary-Kate becomes 'Mary' and 'Kate' in separate fields). Some delete hyphens. Some keep them. Inconsistency is the main problem—the same name might appear differently across systems.
Q3: Do spaces in names matter?
Normal spaces (between words) are fine. Multiple spaces might be normalized. Leading/trailing spaces are usually stripped. 'Mary Ann' works; ' Mary Ann ' becomes 'Mary Ann.' This is usually fine.
Q4: Should I give my child an 'ASCII-safe' name for practical reasons?
That's your call. Cultural heritage, family meaning, and personal preference matter more than database compatibility. But if you're choosing between two equally loved names and one has technical advantages, that might be a tiebreaker.
Q5: My name has special characters and I've been fine. Why worry?
You've been fine because you've adapted. You've learned which systems need 'OBrien' vs 'O'Brien' vs 'O Brien.' Your child will learn too. It's manageable—just not seamless. If you want seamless, standard names provide it. If seamless doesn't matter, name what you love.
Names Are for Humans, Not Databases
Here's the thing: databases should adapt to names, not the other way around. Every 'Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names' article makes this clear. Names come in every format, and systems should handle them all.
But they don't. Not yet. And your child will live in the world as it is, not as it should be.
I'm not advocating that you avoid beautiful names because of technical concerns. I'm advocating awareness. If you name your child Siobhán O'Sullivan, know that you're giving her a gorgeous Irish name AND a lifetime of explaining the apostrophe to customer service. Both can be true. Both can be worth it.
Choose names for human reasons. Just know that humans live in a digital world, and that world has bugs.
Find database-friendly (and database-unfriendly but beautiful) names on SoulSeed—where we care about meaning more than VARCHAR limits.
