>>How does everyone else manage the firstname and lastname fields in a database?

>Not really an answer, but in my last few apps I've used a single field for names. I agonized over this for a while, but looking at my development history I couldn't find any cases where keeping the name broken up was of significant value. Having only one field makes a lot of these types of problems go away.

I use both methods but find spliting the name into two fields a PITA. I have this twinge of guilt that I am breaking the rules of normalization if they are combined.

Thanks for your input.