Let's take a look at how to correctly fill in the name on the ticket and what to do if we have a problem, either in the form of a typo or the need to change the entire name on the ticket.

Below you will find a list of all possible anomalies and their solutions that may arise when buying a ticket and entering a name.

You might also be interested in our similar articles:

• How to make changes to your flight booking
• What to do if the airline changes your flight
• How to change the name on your ticket and sell it

Watch out for auto pre-fill

A good servant but a bad master. That's how you can sum up the automatic pre-filling of the data you have stored in your web browser.

Your data including first name, last name, address and other items will not always be correctly assigned to the fields, although you would expect it to be.

With ticket purchases, changing anything back is a problem, so ideally don't auto-populate anything and avoid unnecessary errors.

Auto-populating even a single item can, and very often does, overwrite already manually entered fields not only for you, but perhaps for other passengers as well, which you may not notice until after payment in the ticket confirmation email.

Reaching

As part of your name, you will also need to include your gender in most cases.

However, you will not always have the choice between male and female. Each retailer or airline uses its own form where you may also come across the following address:

• Mr. (Mr.),
• Mrs. (Mrs.),
• Ms. (Miss),
• Jr. (junior),
• Dr. (doctor).

If you ever happen to misspell and don't notice it in time, don't fix the problem. For example, Expedia, the world's largest ticket seller, doesn't ask for gender at all.

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I got a ticket with mr/mrs at the end of the last name

Some booking systems will send out a booking confirmation with the name as David Eiseltmr instead of Eiselt.

Don't be alarmed, this is how airline booking systems work. Simply have your gender listed along with your name and there will be no problems at the airport.

Co-passengers with the same name

It often happens that a father and son who have the same name travel together. In this case, the system will not let you in and reports a duplication error.

There is a simple solution to this, add jr to the end of the name, e.g. as follows:

• Jan Novak
• Jan Novakjr

From the chapter above, there is no problem at the airport, and the flight attendants routinely work with this and know the abbreviations.

The names on the ticket are always without accents

The eternal debate about the fact that your name on the ticket should exactly match the one on your travel document is mostly about diacritics.

Please, no diacritics on the ticket. Always write your first and last names without commas or hooks.

Why? Extended Latin accents are not supported on many systems and instead of your surname, e.g. "Hrkov", you will see "Hrkov" on your confirmation.

If you have already received such a ticket and the name does not even remotely resemble your real name, you should address the situation and change the name on the ticket, see below.

2 names or surnames

If you have two surnames or given names, always fill them in together with spaces. Thus Martina Rich Nováková will put in the box:

• First name: Martina
• last name: Bohata Novakova

If you fill in only one surname, nothing happens. Both will be correct.

Last name on the ticket after the wedding

Honeymoons can be very tricky, as newlyweds have no idea what woman's name to put on the ticket.

The simple answer is, buy a ticket using the surname that will be on your valid travel document at the time of travel.

If you are planning to travel shortly after the wedding and will not be able to manage to get new documents, buy a ticket in your old, current surname.

If you fly say 2 months or more after the wedding, buy in the new name of your spouse and make sure you get a new travel document during that time.

If things move faster than originally planned and you have already bought your ticket, apply for a name change with your marriage certificate. Most airlines should be able to accommodate you free of charge.

Typos in the name

Check twice, book once.

Although this is the motto followed by the vast majority of travellers, almost every week we answer questions about what to do about typos in your name.

In overwhelming cases, you don't have to do anything. Airlines will tolerate a typo of one or two letters as long as the name with the typo still resembles your real name.

Therefore, if you misspell by one letter, you don't have to do anything. It's okay.

Swapping first and last names

It is also a very common nuisance to swap names when giving passenger details. In this case too, don't hang your head and don't worry, in the vast majority of cases nobody will deal with the problem.

However, some airlines may insist on a change, usually it will be made at check-in at the airport for a fee around 50 eur to 70 eur.

Free change of ticket until midnight

Although for most minor discrepancies you don't need to arrange or change anything, especially for travel to countries where you will need to have your visa sorted in advance, it's a good idea to have names on your ticket even without minor errors.

To that end, we give one last tip that comes in handy even in the worst case scenarios.

If you book your tickets through most reputable retailers and notice an error after paying for your ticket, simply call the number on the confirmation email immediately and the ticket can be adjusted or even cancelled free of charge by midnight the same day.

Expedia, the largest ticket reseller, offers the same benefit, offering the possibility to cancel a ticket within 24 hours of issue.

With Ryanair, 48 hours can be used to correct typos, but not complete changes or cancellations. The same is true for easyJet, which allows changes up to 3 letters at any time.

If you discover the error noticeably later, there is no choice but to cancel and change the entire ticket. We'll devote our own article to this topic.

Conclusion

After reading this article, you have just become an expert at filling in first and last names on airline tickets. Don't be afraid to use the information and give advice to travelers on social media, where you will find at least one question about this issue every day. Thank you for sharing the link if you can.

If you're looking for how to reassign an entire ticket to another person, check out our article How to change the name on your ticket and sell it.