concatenation operator fails with null varchars?

Observe if you will:

contacts=> select * from person;
lastname|othernames|suffixes|creation              |entity_id
--------+----------+--------+----------------------+---------
Clinton |Bill      |        |1999-09-07 18:39:06-07|       28
        |Bob       |        |1999-09-13 23:43:16-07|       33
Rutledge|Shawn     |        |1999-09-13 00:51:28-07|        1
(3 rows)

contacts=> select * from company;
name                   |creation              |entity_id
-----------------------+----------------------+---------
Alcoa                  |1999-09-03 18:41:32-07|       25
Peterbilt              |1999-09-03 18:41:53-07|       26
US Government          |1999-09-03 18:42:07-07|       27
Acme Manufacturing Inc.|1999-09-12 16:28:31-07|       30
ExpressBill            |1999-09-12 19:37:47-07|       31
(5 rows)

contacts=> select othernames || ' ' || lastname || ' ' || suffixes as
name, entity_id from person union select name, entity_id from company;
name                   |entity_id
-----------------------+---------
Acme Manufacturing Inc.|       30
Alcoa                  |       25
Bill Clinton           |       28
ExpressBill            |       31
Peterbilt              |       26
US Government          |       27
                       |        1
                       |       33
(8 rows)

contacts=> select othernames || ' ' || lastname as name, entity_id from
person union select name, entity_id from company;

name                   |entity_id
-----------------------+---------
Acme Manufacturing Inc.|       30
Alcoa                  |       25
Bill Clinton           |       28
ExpressBill            |       31
Peterbilt              |       26
Shawn Rutledge         |        1
US Government          |       27
                       |       33
(8 rows)

It would appear that when using a sequence of concatenation operators,
if
any of the selected varchars are null, then the entire concatenation
fails.
(Note that in the second union, "Shawn Rutledge" showed up despite not
having a "suffixes" value, but "Bob" did not show up because his entry
was missing the required "lastname".  I can only assume that "Bill
Clinton"'s
suffixes field is blank rather than null.)

How can I fix this?  I'd like the null info to be left out but the rest
of the operators to work.
--
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