A fork for the time-zone database?

But "goes by" is again incredibly dependent on both context and culture. When do you go by that name? Is it what friends call you? Co-workers? Remote acquaintances? Are you OK with emails sent to you using that "goes by" name, or would that be way too informal (and how would the sender of the email know)? Are you supposed to write your legal name in the "full name" field exactly as written on your official documents (passport etc.), or would it suffice to use whatever you usually use (e.g. Beth Smith instead of Elizabeth Smith)? Should the "goes by" field include your family name if you have one? Do you need to give both if both are usually the same?

I fear such two fields would be even more confusing to users than the typical but widely used "given & family name" or similar, meaning the entity storing the data couldn't realistically make good use of it.

Of course there are instances where you need specific pieces of information, e.g. if you need a person's name as given on their passport (for official things such as crossing borders). And maybe it's useful to have an additional fields for more informal communication between that entity and you. But if that's the case (and I'd guess that such cases are really rare), be explicit in what you name those fields, really explicit, so that there's no doubt what they'll be used for. For example: "Name as written on your passport" and "Preferred name for us to use when communicating with you".

I go by (Forename) and am happy for corporate and governmental correspondence to open with "Dear (Forename)" (but also perfectly content for it to open with "Dear Mr (Forename)".

If I were more conservative about correspondence etiquette, I would expect it to open with "Dear Mr (Surname)"... but if I were that conservative about correspondence etiqutte and had a knighthood that they knew about, I would expect them to address me as "Sir (Forename)". And I would expect all of that without having to "jump through hoops" on their website, expecting simply putting my title, forename, and surname to be sufficient.

And as I am, I get mildly grumpy about letters opening "Dear (Forename) (Surname)" because they fall between two stools, satisfying neither my own casualism nor the standards expected by the formalist in my head.