Is it the Washington Post or The Onion?

I loved this story in the Washington Post: Offbeat Name? Then Facebook’s No Friend. It’s a good story but it could have come straight out of The Onion.

Because after Caitlin Batman Shaw, a mental health therapist in Arlington, submitted the brief online form, she received an automated response rejecting her. The faceless gatekeepers of Facebook had decided her name could not possibly be real. Batman Shaw appealed, and was rejected. Appealed, rejected. "The process took me three weeks" and several e-mail queries, she says, before she was finally able to use her full legal name.

She can join the Yodas, the Christmases, the Beers, the Pancakes and all of the other wannabe Facebookers whose online rejections represent the latest in a lifetime of name shame. And really, what’s the point of Facebook if you can’t be yourself?

I have a difficult surname (for English-speakers, the Dutch and Germans do fine with it). Sometimes, I’d quite like to be called Batman, Super, Six, Christmas, Beer or even Pancake.

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