Why do people spell names funny ?

[Rolly]

Why do so many people spell their name with all the letters in uppercase and the family name before the first names ?

[Hippy]

When I lived in France this was the way to write names on forms or reports and stuff. The surname or family name comes first in capitals followed by the given name or Christian name in lower case, first letter capitalised. It avoids confusion when a name like Denis could be either family name or given name.

Example: "The driver of the other car was LACOSTE Ermentrude and the gendarme at the scene was L'PLOD Pierre, and the passer by who saw the accident was DENIS Paul"

I suspect as customs become more homogonised throughout the EU this useful tip will become common in this country.