Hello Krileon
Yes, I figured that out over the weekend and meant to come back here and delete or change my post, but didn't get around to it; sorry for that.
Regarding the collation, its utf8_general_ci for the entire database; all accents seem to be produced except for the apostrophe in the username and name fields.
I noticed that while you can have accents, like Mónica in the username, you cannot have an apostrophe as in O'Connor in the username, and hence in the name field as well. Also, I have several 2-character lastnames, so they will never have their correct last name listed.
"Please enter a valid Username:. No spaces, more than 2 characters and contain 0-9,a-z,A-Z".
I think I added the extra field early on after reading too many posts and manuals.
Thanks for your reply!
dan