Notices in variable_children and variable_include

Yes, the patch looks good, though I'm wondering how can this happen since variable_build should return a complete variable array (with name).

Also I haven't seen the notice yet .

And anyway, I'm not sure we want to hide that notices, we should fix the bug producing that incomplete $variable array instead.

The issue popped from some misbehaving contributed module(s)

Then this would be just a way to hide the issue, which we really don't want to do.

If a module defines wrong data, we better have an error and try to fix that one because just hiding it can make it go unnoticed forever.

Had the same issue but after upgrading to the latest version issue went away.
A small note: while not sure about the patch
the line

<?php
  if ($variable && !isset($included[$variable['name']])) {
?>

would read better:

<?php
  if (isset($variable) && !isset($included[$variable['name']])) {
?>

or

<?php
  if (!is_null($variable) && !isset($included[$variable['name']])) {
?>

As the function is declared as

<?php
function variable_include($variable = NULL) {
?>

and is called in a couple of places with no argument.
Not saying its a bug but will make help the code easier to read.