This problem isn't handling names, its validating them and trying to do clever things with them, which is rarely, truly, necessary - especially if its a customer's name that they see on mail, bills etc and that they have the ability to correct... they will validate it for you.

I think the real bad assumption is that validation is necessary or even desirable - applying the technique brainlessly to names is the root cause of this problem - you don't really need to make any assumptions.