Not having a second surname still causing problems in Spain?

However, not only was an X used as my second surname, on other documents a full stop was used (I was told by the bank it was the only way to override the computer system). This caused multiple complaints as I tried to explain that how could I have a document / credit card that didn’t have my real name on it. Of course one of the easiest solutions was to use my middle name as my first surname, but this also didn’t seem right.

So it was with some trepidation that with the advent of the Internet and the inevitable “mandatory field” that the second surname would cause problems in Spain for foreigners. And so it was, from being unable to contract online with Iberdrola to many other large and small companies. Phoning was usually the only way to get around the problem.

But as time went by and companies (and computer programmers) realised that there is a world of names that don’t conform to the Spanish standards, things got a lot better… until a couple of days ago.

Ifema is Madrid’s Trade Fair centre and, as such, an international meeting place and holds many major fairs such as the tourism fair, Fitur, to be held this week. So, going online to get a ticket should have been easy and I chose the option of “tickets for residents in Spain”. But, no second surname, no ticket, as the system refused to accept that the field was left empty.

Today I decided to have another look but the ticket links are no longer working. I can only suppose that I should have used “English form for foreigners”, but considering that my first option didn’t say that it was only for people of Spanish nationality then I stand by my gripe!