Probably some bureaucrat decades ago making an incorrect assumption that passed down through generations. Happened to my family. No Irish roots whatsoever, yet somehow we ended up with the annoying form-breaking apostrophe in our 'legal' name just because it begins with the letter 'o'.

"Oscar??? Surely, you're mistaken. I hereby decree your name to be O'Scar!" ~Arsehole circa 1937

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yep also happened to my family. There is a y in my family name, but that’s very uncommon in the Netherlands, my last name is of French origin. So some bureaucrat changed it to a Dutch y which is an ij and there was no time to correct it since my grandparents had to catch the boat to flee the former Dutch colony. Now my last name is constantly pronounced wrong. I’m probably going to change it in the future but in the Netherlands you are not allowed to change your name except for a few exceptions. And applying for a name change cost a lot of money and you won’t get it back if they reject it. So I probably have to get a lawyer to do it.

[–] Affidavit@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah, I've considered a name change myself. Decided not to bother as it would mean every time I need to prove my identity to a government organisation I'd need to provide additional change of name documentation.

Government is hard enough to deal with as it is without adding an extra thing that needs to be assessed.