These unlucky people have names that break computers

When Jennifer Null tries to buy a plane ticket, she gets an error message on most websites. The site will say she has left the surname field blank and ask her to try again.

But to any programmer, it’s painfully easy to see why “Null” could cause problems for a database. This is because the word “null” is often inserted into database fields to indicate that there is no data there.

For people like Null, though, it’s likely that they will encounter headaches for a long time to come. Some might argue that those with troublesome names might think about changing them to save time and frustration.