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I wouldn't be surprised if that is the representation that would be used if 'Dr Aleksan' were correct, I recall some funky stuff like that from a post here I think a while ago describing some of the quirks and ways it has to continue working for interop (but I think the post was about doing what could be done to update/modernise/fix, I'll try to find it).

And certainly I've had 'Oliverjames', so it would only have to be that it becomes 'Aleksan Dr' (and before that concatenation) to complete the picture.




This is not even the only case. The Arabic name Amr is often turned into Mr. A, which is an even bigger problem if your airline's website doesn't accept single-letter first names.

This happens due to an ancient data exchange protocol called airline TTY, which doesn't contain an "honorific" field and has no room for extension. In their eternal wisdom, American regulators completely ignored this fact and started requiring airlines to process honorifics after 9/11. The only available workaround was sticking the honorific at the end of the name. When you book a flight that doesn't have anything to do with the US, this data might or might not be included, but downstream systems don't know if it is or not. If it is not and your name ends with an honorific, the honorific gets stripped.


I wonder if anyone called Yasir (male Arabic name) has been upgraded, due to the name being interpreted as Sir Ya.




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