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British Gas's programmers don't believe that a surname can be only a single character.
Their customer service agents worked around this by adding a parenthetical note to my record.
The result is hilarious postal mail that tries to reassure me that my surname really is what it is:
EDIT: Well this blew up. FAQ etc. at https://danq.me/it-is-only-q
@dan I once heard a story about a fellow who was named R. B. Jones — just those initials, no names. At one point, he signed up for some service and listed his name as “R(only) B(only) Jones,” so thereafter he received mail addressed to “Ronly Bonly Jones.”
@BryceWrayTX @grumble209 told me the same story, except it was Jonly Bonly Smith (who their mother met in the 1970s).
Look around the Web, and you'll sometimes find Donnelly as the surname too (e.g. http://russnelson.com/rbdonnelly.html). Snopes traces the story (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/funny-names/#ronly) to a letter published in a 1958 issue of Readers' Digest, but it's quite reasonable to assume that this urban legend was floating around for some time before then.
Some versions of the story have Ronly/Jonly in the military (and the name appears on his dogtags), others have him receive a paycheque under it. In some recent twists, he (like me) sometimes has to enter his name funny to have it accepted by computer systems.
Was there ever really a Ronly Bonly or Jonly Bonly? Who knows. The story's changed so much in the telling over the decades, we might never know.
Still a funny anecdote though.
@dan @grumble209 yes, I remember reading it in a Readers Digest although not nearly that long ago — perhaps it was a repeat from that 1958 issue.
@BryceWrayTX @dan This story must have been going around mom's office and I misunderstood what she was telling.
Damn it - I was sure this was something that happened to mom. How much other stuff in my head is bullshit? 
Shit, maybe these LLMs are as smart as people?