Hi.
I am travelling to USA soon. I bought the airline tickets from an online travel agency. When I made the booking, I wrote my full name, exactly as it appears in my passport.
In the passport, my name is written as following (not real name):

Surname: Anderson
Given names: Johan Smith

When booking, I wrote the following:
First name field: Johan Smith
Middle name field: Nothing. In Scandinavia we don’t use the term middle name. We have one given name, which may include more than one name.
Surname field: Anderson

And on my E-ticket, my name appears as: JOHANSMITH ANDERSON

I am now going to apply for ESTA.
In the field (Family Name); it is required to write the family name as it appears on the passport under the Family Name or Surname field. So in this field I will write Anderson.
In the field (First (Given) Name); it is required to write first (given) name as the first name appears on the passport under the First or Given Name field. The following is also mentioned “Do not include the middle name in this field”.
My question is:
In the field “First (Given) Name” in ESTA, do I have to write Johan Smith or only Johan?
If I only write Johan, then the name in ESTA will not be the same as on the ticket, because on the ticket the first name is Johan Smith?

Please help. Thank you.
Regards
MH

If Johan Smith is your given name you write that.

If Smith is not your middle name just a part of your first you write that.

I am swedish.

Thank you Tanja.
Smith is my father's name. But I don't consider it as a middle name.
I really don't know what to write in ESTA. If I only write Johan, then it will not match my ticket, because I wrote Johan Smith as a first name.
Any suggestions?

So you dont have double last names? If you dont then your dads name is your given name.

One of my daughter has to given names without the common - between them. She has no middle names at all.

And I have to middle names and one given name.
My middle names are placed first and the given name last. That has confused a lot of people in USA.
I was also born before 1978. That was around that time kids had to have their given names first and any middle names after.

We in Sweden dont really use our middle names. In USA they do. I dont.

No, Only Anderson (as an example) is my last name.
Also on my driver's license, First name is Johan Smith and Last Name is Anderson.
But in school, work etc. I am known as Johan, people only use the first given name And my signature only contains the name Johan.
So, what should I write in ESTA? I would like to be on the safe side

You should write Johan Smith.

Some "officers" in USA is very picky.

I am so glad that I do have resident card. Since my first names in my passport are my middle names.

I will do so. To be on the safe side, even though they write �Do not include the middle name in this field�, because as I mentioned I don't consider Smith as a middle name. It is a part of my first name on all my IDs.
If I write Johan Smith in ESTA, then it will match my ticket 100 %. And hopefully there should be no problems.

You know that better than them.
Some always pretend to know more than you.

They dont.

So you do that and you will be fine.

A lot of people do not have any middle names at all. Or even a second name. Just 1 first name and 1 last name.

Because my father's name (Smith) is included in my first name, it does not mean that it should be considered as a middle name.
And I don't have any documents that says that (Smith) is a middle name. And the best proof is my passport. It does not consider it as a middle name, only a surname and Given name(s).

Thank you very much for your kind reply

I think you will be fine.

Being swedish ,me, you can always write a personal message to me. That is if you press down on my name Tanja.

Any time.

Personally, I believe you are over-thinking the whole thing.

I have an ESTA and the name on it does not match the entire name on my passport. I have had no problems entering the USA with this ESTA.

Say my name is Mary Jane Jones (not my real name, just an example). Mary Jane Jones is the name on my passport.

On my ESTA application, I put "Mary" as my first name, and "Jones" as my last name - no middle name, as instructed on the web site.

So, my passport says Mary Jane Jones and my ESTA printout says Mary Jones, and that has not caused any problems.

In you case, your passport will say Johan Smith Anderson, and your ESTA could say Johan Anderson, and this should not not cause you any problem.

It doesn't matter to the official who looks at your documentation that, in Scandinavia, "Smith" is also considered to be part of your first name. It is written as a separate word and in the USA it will be considered to be your middle name.

It's the US official who has to be satisfied in this instance, and not your own national custom. So, go by the US rules on this, and put Johan as your first name and Anderson as your last name. Don't include Smith.

Of course, you could probably still put "Johan Smith" as your first name, and still not have any problems!

Thank you very much for the reply.
I see what you mean.
But as mentioned, when I made the booking I wrote Johan Smith as (First name) and Anderson as (Surname). I left the (Middle name) field empty, when I made the booking. So on my e-ticket it is written as:
JOHANSMITH ANDERSON
And it will also be written as JOHANSMITH ANDERSON on my boarding pass (I think).
If I only write Johan Anderson in the ESTA application, it will not match the flight ticket (boarding pass)?
Do you also use Mary Jane when booking flights? Is it shown on your boarding pass?

It need not match the ticket name but in such circumstance it may be better to match the ESTA with what is in the passport if wanting a minimum of hassles.

Johan for given/first name and Smith for middle name and Anderson for family/last name. Regardless of multiple first names, a secondary first name being made more prominent or having a secondary family name/mellanamn, do the ESTA as mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph of mine. [A Scandinavian "mellannamn" may literally translate into middle name in English but functionally it is but another family name for most people born in say Sweden today. In the US a middle name is most frequently not a family name. And in Sweden, for example, many people have more than one given first name -- most of the Swedes in my family have at least two given first names before even hitting the mellanamn and last/surname fields.]

Once the ESTA is approved you shouldn't have a problem with the airline over the ticket and/or boarding pass showing as you noted above.

You could leave the middle name out, but the way things are processed by or for the US Government's blacklisting/targeting mechanisms, something inserted in the middle name field has a history of being more useful than not.

I want to add the following.

I , some years ago, bought a ticket for Sweden and the travel agency misspelled my given name.

They could not chance the name on the ticket once it was issued. But I was told it could cause problems cause it had to match my passport.

Everything is possible so it is better to be prepared.

So just do the same on esta as on the ticket.

So do you have any relatives that have any names first that are middle names and then the last name is the given?

Do they ever get into trouble?

I have 2 first middle names and the third is my given name. The name erverybody calls me and is on my ID's.
It has caused problems for me.