I had to convince people to let me on board a plane because my name contain a swedish letter (å). Their computer system translated it into "aa", which then didn't match my passport.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

That one I can actually see, having an extra letter that doesn't match. Dropped punctuation or symbols (whatever the flair is called) though personally I wouldn't care.

[–] wieson@feddit.org 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's the wrong way of looking at an å.

It's not just an a with decoration. It actually has different pronunciation and is typically replaced with aa if no å is available. (I'm neither Swedish nor Norwegian, so not 100% sure, but it's what happened to Erling Haaland).

Similarly, you would replace a German ä with ae. So if my name was Bäcker, it would be wrong to spell it Backer on a ticket. Baecker would be the way.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Yes I'm aware it's not an a with decoration jfc. I'm saying for computer entries that garble things, I wouldn't care about matching it up so perfectly (with dropped whatever those things are called) as to not allow someone to board a plane.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

“Diacritics” is the word you are looking for.

And unfortunately the kind of people who decide whether people get to board a plane do care about that stuff.

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Your name is transliterated in your passport? That's on the Swedish authorities then.

[–] pmk@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, my passport has my real name of course, with "å". In the airport system and on the boarding pass my name was spelled with "aa".

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works -1 points 10 months ago

I'm amazed that none of your family members have run into the same problem. If I were you I would compare passports with my family.