I come from an Asian country where the concept of names is different from the US. Our passport only has a full name field, as our culture/legal system does not distinguish first/last name so much.
So on my passport the full name field is something like, "Smith Jon Doe", where in the context of my origin country, Smith is last name, Jon is a middle name, and Doe is a first name, but clearly there's no legal definition which is which.
On my US immigration documents, I've always had "Jon Doe" as first name, and "Smith" as last name. The rationale at the time was: to put exactly what my passport says, it's better to include all the words that leave out the middle name Jon.
And I've done the same for everything else like banks, credit cards, utilities.<p>Over years, despite putting down my first name exactly as "Jon Doe", each institution/company has treated the first name in its own way, including "Jondoe", "Jon-doe" and "Jon D". Even the DMV got its own variation. When I call to fix it, most replies are "our system cannot handle the space", or "your name cannot have a space".<p>My question is:<p>-what version should I stick to (and change everything else to, in order to be consistent)?<p>-My DMV license says "Jondoe". Is that a safe bet?<p>-Would having different name variations come to bite me in the future?
Keep in mind that everything you're describing is the result of bad programming practices from before Globalization took off.<p>If your name is Doe and Jon is optional change your name to Doe Smith and expect to be called that. if Jon Doe is your full name you should probably use Jon-Doe and ask if the institution you're dealing with has a suggestion/complaint box.<p>Jondoe is a safe bet, but it also implies that Jondoe is a single name.<p>Having various names MIGHT bite you, but probably won't. No one is likely to start an issue over it, but if there's another issue they're likely to use it against you.