Letters from the client’s family name should be provided first, followed by letters from the client’s first given name. In the first three spaces, the agency should record the 2nd, 3rd and 5th letters of the client’s legal family name. In the following two spaces the agency should record the 2nd and 3rd letters of the client’s legal first given name.

For example: If the client’s legal name is Brown, Elizabeth (that is, family, first given name) the reported value should be RONLI. If the client’s legal name is Thompson, Robert the reported value should be HOPOB.

If either of the client’s legal names includes non-alphabetic characters—for example hyphens (as in Lee-Archer) apostrophes (as in O’Mara) or blank spaces (as in Eu Jin)—these non-alphabetic characters should be ignored when counting the position of each character.

Regardless of the length of a person’s name, the reported value should always be five characters long. If either the legal family name or the legal first given name of the person is not long enough to supply the requested letters (that is, a legal family name of less than five letters or a legal first name of less than three letters) then agencies should substitute the number ‘2’ to reflect the missing letters. The placement of a number ‘2’ should always correspond to the same space that the missing letter would have within the 5-digit field.

For example: If a person’s legal name is Farr, Ben then value reported would be AR2EN because the 2 is substituting for a missing 5th letter of the family name. Similarly, if the person’s legal name was Hua, Jo then the value reported would be UA2O2 because the 2s are substituting for the missing 5th letter of the family name and the missing 3rd letter of the first given name.

If a client’s legal family name is missing altogether the agency should record the number 9 for all three spaces associated with the family name and not the number 2. Similarly, if the person’s legal first name is missing altogether the agency should substitute 9s for the two spaces associated with the first given name. A number (rather than a letter) is used for such substitutions in order to clearly indicate that an appropriate corresponding letter from the person’s name is not available.

In some cultures it is traditional to state the family name first. To overcome discrepancies in recording/reporting that may arise as a result of this practice, agencies should always ask the person to specify their legal first given name and their legal family name separately. These should then be recorded as first given name and family name as appropriate, regardless of the order in which they may be traditionally given.
 

The selected Letters of name can be used in combination with Date of birth and Sex to develop a statistical linkage key to facilitate the linkage of records for statistical purposes only. This key will also enable linkage to other related databases that either have the same linkage key or the fundamental information to form the same key. The linkage is to assist research and analysis of the data, not for tracking of individuals through the system for case management.

The provision of letters of a person’s name can be a sensitive issue because of privacy and confidentiality concerns. The use of this information will be in accordance with privacy principles.