I was prompted to write this article by the experience of a friend of mine who was somewhat embarrassed by having his full, legal name called out in front of a room full of people who only knew him by another name. The was the result of a software system suffering from precisely the ailment I described: someone used the ’name’ field for the name displayed to kitchen workers who were preparing an order. There was no need for his legal name to be used there, but either the integration was made before the ‘preferred name’ field was added, or the developer of the integration simply didn’t think to use it.

— Names, Legal Names, and Fractally Deferred Responsibility, Nora Codes