Can I legally embed a newline character in my child’s registered name?

Description

Screenshot of a Stack Exchange question page with the headline, “Can I legally include a line break in my child's name?” The post shows 14 up-votes on the left and has been viewed 2 k times. Body text reads: “Ethics aside, is it legal (or even possible) to include a line break (newline) in my child's name? Preferably at the end of the child's first name, directly after the last letter. So instead of (for example) the name ‘John Doe’, the name would always be written out ‘John Doe’. And then when the first name only is written out the line break would have to be included, such as ‘My child's first name is John and his last name is Doe’. If this is legal, how would I go about making sure the line break is included on the name section of the birth certificate?” Tags shown below the question are “name” and “birth-certificate.” The right sidebar credits user Paul Omar with 257 reputation. Visually it mimics typical Stack Overflow styling - white background, light gray text boxes, upvote arrow, and blue link fonts. Technically, the humor arises from treating human names like strings, testing boundary conditions for newline characters, and highlighting real-world input-validation edge cases that databases, forms, and legal systems rarely anticipate

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Stackoverflow NamingThings TechHumor EdgeCase InputValidation DataValidation

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Anonymous ★ Top Pick Go ahead and name him “Evan\n” - just remember to set his middle name to “\r” so at least one of the state’s COBOL birth-registry batch jobs survives the encounter

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

Go ahead and name him “Evan\n” - just remember to set his middle name to “\r” so at least one of the state’s COBOL birth-registry batch jobs survives the encounter
Anonymous

Someone's been maintaining legacy government systems for too long and knows exactly which COBOL programs from 1973 will throw a segfault when parsing birth certificates - this is either the ultimate pen test or the most elaborate way to ensure your kid never gets their name spelled correctly on any official document
Anonymous

This is the inevitable result of spending 20 years debugging why production systems fail on unexpected input: you start wondering if you can inject a \n into the civil registry database. Bonus points if they're also considering whether to use \r\n for Windows compatibility with the hospital's legacy system, or planning a fallback to Unicode line separator (U+2028) if the registrar's validation logic rejects ASCII control characters. The real question isn't whether it's legal - it's whether the birth certificate form uses proper parameterized queries or if this is actually an SQLi vector: "Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--"
Anonymous

Name the kid "John\nDoe" - CRLF injection as a parenting style. The hospital EMR thinks you had twins, the DMV issues two records, and every CSV export quietly proves who still doesn’t quote fields
Anonymous

John\nDoe: Proves even birth registries need better VARCHAR sanitization than most enterprise CRMs
Anonymous

“John␍␊Doe” isn’t a name, it’s a red‑team test case - HTTP response splitting, CSV formula injection, and log forging, all triggered by a birth announcement
@dvrkplayer 3y

John <br> Doe
Deleted Account 3y

Null Doe
@JosTechS 3y

"John\n Doe"
@FallenChromium 3y

\n bro. Or \r\n if you're using Windows rather than an actual OS
1. @choke_hazard 3y
  
  What is the actual OS?
  
  @jaythemonke 3y
  
  OS/2
  
  @choke_hazard 3y
  
  That's not the actual one, only half of it
  
  @jaythemonke 3y
  
  lies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2
  
  @choke_hazard 3y
  
  You can't argue when it's literally defined in it's name
  
  @jaythemonke 3y
  
  idk I’m just a monkey
  
  @FallenChromium 3y
  
  🐧
  
  @choke_hazard 3y
  
  Nah man read carefully. I didn't ask about a working model of OS for no-lifers. The question was about actual OS
@maggelia 3y

Easy, just write John Doe
@affirvega 3y

ah, this is the slippery road. if this would be allowed, we'll see real life little Bobby Tables in the future
@mcalexvrn 3y

old but gold
@meisamdev 3y

😂 🤣 😂
@SamsonovAnton 3y

How a line break is supposted to match the legal name pattern? /([a-z-]+[ ])*[a-z-]/i
1. @affirvega 3y
  
  Why'd you put space in brackets?
  
  @beton_kruglosu_totchno 3y
  
  Why would you not? It's a valid expression
  
  @affirvega 3y
  
  well, it is, but feels redundant..
  
  @beton_kruglosu_totchno 3y
  
  it looks kind of nice, it's somewhat readable
  
  Deleted Account 3y
  
  obfuscate
  
  @SamsonovAnton 3y
  
  No, it is all about readability; and expandability, too (for adding alternative word separators if needed).
2. @RiedleroD 3y
  
  this can't be the legal name pattern because then just a singular dash would be legal
3. Deleted Account 3y
  
  /([a-z]|[a-z][a-z -][a-z])+/i
Deleted Account 3y

OH NO
1. @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 3y
  
  Is that a nullbyte?
  
  Deleted Account 3y
  
  it sure is
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 3y
  
  So he is now just John?
@glatavento 3y

Why names can only be strings
@glatavento 3y

Let's give trees some chance

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Can I legally embed a newline character in my child’s registered name?

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