What is a reasonable length limit on person Name fields

Question

I have a simple webform that will allow unauthenticated users to input their information  including name  I gave the name field a limit of 50 characters to coincide with my database table where the field is varchar 50   but then I started to wonder   Is it more appropriate to use something like the Text column type or should I limit the length of the name to something reasonable   I m using SQL Server 2005  in case that matters in your response   EDIT  I did not see this broader question regarding similar issues

User · Answer

Ian Nelson  I m wondering if others see the problem there   Let s say you have split fields  That s 70 characters total  35 for first name and 35 for last name  However  if you have one field  you neglect the space that separates first and last names  short changing you by 1 character  Sure  it s  only  one character  but that could make the difference between someone entering their full name and someone not  Therefore  I would change that suggestion to  35 characters for each of Given Name and Family Name  or 71 characters for a single field to hold the Full Name

User · Answer

UK Government Data Standards Catalogue suggests 35 characters for each of Given Name and Family Name  or 70 characters for a single field to hold the Full Name

User · Answer

What you re really asking is a related  but substantially different question  how often do I want to truncate names in order to fit them in the database  The answer depends both on the frequency of different lengths of names as well as the maximum lengths chosen  This concern is balanced by the concerns about resources used by the database  Considering how little overhead difference there is between different max lengths for a varchar field I d generally err on the side of never being forced to truncate a name and make the field as large as I dared

User · Answer

In the UK  there are a few government standards which deal successfully with the bulk of the UK population -- the Passport Office  the Driver  amp  Vehicle Licensing Agency  the Deed Poll office  and the NHS  They use different standards  obviously   Changing your name by Deed Poll allows 300 characters      There is no legal limit on the length of your name  but we impose a limit of 300 characters  including spaces  for your full name     The NHS uses 70 characters for patient names     PATIENT NAME   Format length     max an70   The Passport Office allows 30 30 first last and Driving Licenses  DVLA  is 30 total      Note that other organisations will have their own restrictions about what they will show on the documents they produce     for HM Passport Office the limit is 30 characters each for your forename and your surname  and for the DVLA the limit is 30 characters in total for your full name

User · Answer

We use 50

User · Answer

depending on who is going to be using your database  for example African names will do with varchar 20  for last name and first name separated  however it is different from nation to nation but for the sake saving your database resources and memory  separate last name and first name fields and use varchar 30  think that will work

User · Answer

If it s full name in one field  I usually go with 128 - 64 64 for first and last in separate fields - you just never know

User · Answer

The average first name is about 6 letters   That leaves 43 for a last name      Seems like you could probably shorten it if you like   The main question is how many rows do you think you will have   I don t think varchar 50  is going to kill you until you get several million rows

User · Answer

I know I m late on this one  but I ll add this comment anyway  as others may well come here in the future with similar questions   Beware of tweaking column sizes dependent on locale  For a start  it sets you up for a maintenance nightmare  leaving aside the fact that people migrate  and take their names with them    For example  Spanish people with those extra surnames can move to and live in an English-speaking country  and can reasonably expect their full name to be used  Russians have patronymics in addition to their surnames  some African names can be considerably longer than most European names    Go with making each column as wide as you can reasonably do  taking into account the potential row count  I use 40 characters each for first name  other given names and surname and have never found any problems

User · Answer

Note that many cultures have  second surnames  often called family names  For example  if you are dealing with Spanish people  they will appreciate having a family name separated from their  surname    Best bet is to define a data type for the name components  use those for a data type for the surname and tweak depending on locale

User · Answer

I usually go with varchar 255   255 being the maximum length of a varchar type in MySQL

[sql] What is a reasonable length limit on person "Name" fields?

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