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My name is let us say John O’Shea, so my surname is

• O’Shea

Note how

• The first letter is Capitalised (of course)
• There is an apostophe (no spaces either side)
• The first letter of the Shea is capitalised

My surname is not

• O Shea (makes it look like the O an initial of a middle name)
• OShea (at least they capitalised the S)
• Oshea (no comment!)
• Shea (dropping the O is often referred to as ‘taking the soup’, a term with political and religions connotations beyond the scope of this article!)

The only variation that could be correct would be ifI was being referred to in the Irish language (or Gaelic as I recently heard it called on an episode of Murder She Wrote) where it would be

• Ó Sé

Now, this might sound pedantic, but having a surname of Irish origin, that is to say a surname that contains an apostophe causes many problems in this computer age.

I once received an academic certificate, suitable for framing! which said

“This is to certify that John Oshea has passed the examination…”

Now, surely someone, somewhere knew that was wrong? or did they?

I am constantly surprised to meet fellow apostophied surname holders who don’t know how to even write their own names. I have, yes believe it, met another John O Shea who wrote his name like that.

But the real problem these days is on the web. Some scripts don’t like the apostophe, and that character is reserved for coding. So when I enter my name it becomes John O/‘Shea.

My .ie domains are incorrectly named. The IE Domain Registry system, or else it is the resellers script does that, but some WHOIS on some  .ie domains returns proper names, it’s mystery, and one that no one is interested in, well I assume so, if you are then please comment!

A more serious problem, one with consequences is Airline tickets. My Passport is in the name of John O’Shea (in fairness to the Passport Office, they print exactly what you write on the application form)

But when I book tickets on airline websites they often become John O Shea, which often becomes John Shea, maybe some human vets these things?
I’ve been delayed in Airports many times, never missed a flight yet, but it could happen.

and then theres my credit card… When ordering stuff online its bad enough that Address Verification doesn’t work because we have no postcodes in Eire (I don’t want postcodes) but an extra flag is raised when name verification fails. Some companies such as Dabs want you to jump through hoops when two flags are raised.

So, do you have a surname with an apostophe? Let us know what you experiences are below…

Cheers, John O’Shea
oh and by the way, a note to Journalists this text is Copyright John O’Shea (spelled correctly) so don’t lift it for your back page!