"It's standard shortsightedness," he said. "Most programs set a rule for first name and last name. They don't think of foreign-sounding names."

And the shortsightedness predated computers by a long chalk. Among my ancestors there's a big mob, from France, called de Rohan but, by the time (in the 19th century) the emigrator to Australia had had his details recorded in the system, he was always listed as "Drohan".

Cheers, Rowan