I never use my first name anywhere (most of my frineds don't even know Abbas is my middle name, not first) and have never had any trouble with FB. The point is that Salman Rushdie is a highly controversial figure and I bet this is not the first time someone has tried to create an account with that name. If FB didn't block folks from doing this, Rushdie would be complaining how FB never checks on reals vs. fakes. The point is, FB is trying to maintain the integrity of it's data, and people like Rushdie are often attacked for their opinions and are a target of those who disagree with them.
So, a Salman Rushdie account appears. Facebook is afraid that, given Salman Rushdie's sometimes infamy, that this might be a troll account that can be more inflammatory than it's worth.
So they verify Rushdie's identity and are suitably convinced that it really is him.
... So they make him change his account name? How does that make sense?
They don't make him do anything outside of what he is supposed to do as per their policy - use his real first and last names on his FB account. The problem arises when he is well known by his middle name and has been using it as his first name. Which once they clarified with him was allowed on the site.
Side note: It is common for people from that part of the world (Indo-subcontinent) to use their middle name as their first (like Salman and I do).
So therein lies the fatal shortcoming in the "real names" policy. Looking beyond privacy and anonymity issues (though those are important), the policy itself doesn't work simply because the concept of a canonical name for a person doesn't really exist.
In some cultures it's prevalent to go by your middle name. In some others preferred names are shortened from its legal form. Some people have multiple names, each one just as legal and valid as the other (I have both a legal English and Chinese name, for example).
Nothing that Facebook (or to be fair, G+) does accounts for any of this, and without a framework to manage a person's many names (not to mention identities), a "real name" policy is both shortsighted and unenforceable.
My original point stands - we've established and agree that asking Salman Rushdie to use Ahmed Rushdie is stupid and unacceptable. Rushdie got this decision reversed because he's famous and published. Anyone else would not be so lucky. So why does this policy continue to exist and get enforced?
[edit] And something else: my parents had the foresight to officialize my English name when we immigrated to North America. Many other Chinese I know have gone by English names for decades and yet never got it cemented legally. According to Google/Facebook these people have no claim over these names, despite the fact that all of their friends and family have known them by only that name for decades.
So I guess what these companies are trying to communicate is, if I pay the paltry fee to get my name legally changed to Superfly McAwesome tomorrow, that's a-ok by them. But an account belonging to Ho Li-Jen, who's gone by "Jean" all her life, who is known by her neighbors and friends by that name, needs to be found and made to fix their account.
I understand your frustration, but the point here is famous people versus regular. Not western vs eastern culture (for naming conventions). And I think its ok for famous people to be able to go by their public persona or stage name.
I agree with you that the examples you cited seem to have no remedy. What's your proposed solution?
Not have a real-name policy. Identity is too complex a concept to be reduced to simple data structures, no matter how much us engineers desperately want to.
If one is concerned about impersonation, attack impersonation - impersonation can and will happen even with a strongly-enforced real-name policy (name changes, anyone?). Empower support to deal with impersonation on a case-by-case basis.
Open-endedness in this sort of enforcement can be risky, but it's certainly better than the "baby with the water" policy the way it is right now.
