Efrem

My passport shows my first, middle and family names. I always use only my middle initial in travel. I travel enough to need a 48-page U.S. passport as a starter and sometimes add pages. I have never, EVER had a problem of ANY sort, however trivial, because my middle name is not written out in full on my travel documents.

I recently finished a trip to India with legs on United, Singapore, Jet Lite and Air India. The order of parts in my name was majorly messed up by a Coimbatore-based travel agent. However, all the parts were there, so in boarding 10 segments there was no difficulty with security at any time. The only problems were:

1. Check-in agents and others couldn't find my reservation by family name. They could find it via the airlines' record locator or by entering my given (first) name as my family name, though. This caused a delay, measured in single-digit minutes, but did no other harm.

2. I didn't get automatic frequent flyer credit because the family name on my ticket didn't match what the airline's database has. This had to be handled after the fact via the airline's frequent flyer program, with e-mailing scans of boarding passes and so on. A bit of a hassle, but at the end of the day credit was given. (Almost all of it, anyhow. I'm still waiting for one leg to post, but that part was my fault.)

In your case, with the only difference among documents being lack of a space, I doubt you'll have even those problems.