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Comment by andrewmcwatters | Hacker News Reader

Same, as someone with two middle names. Both scenarios are very common.

I can beat this. My wife's maiden name was in the form "Jane Angela Smith". When we got married, she changed it to "Jane Smith Jones", first name Jane, middle name Smith, last name Jones. Someone at the Social Security Administration entered it into their database as first name "Jane", no middle name, last name "Smith Jones".

Now, for fun, no one noticed this for about 25 years. Her Social Security card says "Jane Smith Jones". Her driver's license says "Jones, Jane Smith". Her US passport says "Jones, Jane Smith". But another part of the federal government says "Smith Jones, Jane". We only found this out when she tried to renew her driver's license recently and the clerk was like, "hey, this isn't matching up right...". A month later, the TSA clerk at the airport stopped her to ask why her passport didn't match her federal records.

So now we're paying $400 to legally change her name from "Jane Smith Jones" to "Jane Smith Jones". That's what the notice they make you pay to run in the newspaper says, anyway.

The father of an acquaintance of mine, still a child at the time, migrated from Spain to Argentina with his uncle. On arrival, the uncle was asked for his name. "Guzman y Gomez", he replied, meaning himself (Guzman) and his nephew (Gomez).

End result: both father, uncle and all their offspring now have "Guzman y Gomez" as their last name.

(Yes, this is a pseudonym. No burrito for you.)

This is now my go to story about name nonsense for a while.

I think it's kind of hilarious even though it's an expensive pain in the neck. There's nothing we can do to make it go away on its own, so we might as well find the humor in it.

i have a tangential story that i wonder how many entropy i'll leak telling it.

My youngest, when he was born, was unable to get a birth certificate, and was listed as some last name that isn't the mom's or mine (it's because we couldn't track down her 15 year estranged "husband" and louisiana law is... French.) I had to do a paternity test, but that's it, other than hiring a lawyer. The lawyer pushed everything through. I don't "rightfully" own my last name (and i was the last one in the world, damnit!), so we told the lawyer to tell the state we wanted the mom's last name. It has much more known history to her and grandma, etc. I'm the only one in my tree, except the kid.

anyhow the state said "NOPE, DAD'S LAST NAME" so now the kid, instead of being burdened with a last name that looks like a cat fell on your keyboard, has my last name, which is two words.

which is apparently not fixed after me being around for 45 years, and my dad for like 20 years before that in the US.

It seems like this is relatively critical stuff, you know? it can interfere with bank accounts, school financial support, taxes, retirement, and you won't know until you hit each obstacle.

I am so sympathetic. It shouldn't be that hard, huh?

I’ve wondered about this myself, though I only have one middle name. Do you typically enter both middle names into the “Middle Name” form field?

I have two middle names, in fact in my country legally we go with 4 names [first name, father's name, grandfather's name, and last name]. It is always a guess game when converting to only 2 names systems. In many cases I'd just go with my first name field including all of the first 3 names just to match the passport (especially for airflights booking).

Not the person you asked, but I also have a 2 word middle name. I enter both but it's a crapshoot as to whether it will take the first, the second, or both. I think a lot of older systems could handle 2 words in the first name (e.g. Joe Bob or Mary Ann) but not the middle.

I have two and it has never been a big problem. Anything official will have a 'middle name(a)' section and you just put both in there. I think it is sufficiently common that official systems deal with it. I have occasionally had the second one dropped but not on anything very official.

If your full name is John Charles Paul Jacob Smith, then by definition the middle name is "Paul" right?

So with even number of names there would be no middle name at all? :)

Mr. T once joked that his first name was "Mr", his middle name was the period, and his last name was "T": https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10158317051194205

or people whose middle name is their first name.

Hey, that's also relevant to me! I've checked my local laws, and where I live, your legal name is the one you consistently present yourself as. If you're Joe Frank Smith, and you go by Frank everywhere, that's your legal name.

I've gotten so tired of having this argument. Inevitably some clerk will insist on calling me by my first name, "you know, your legal name". No. My middle name is my legal name. It's what my mom, sisters, wife, friends, teachers, coworkers, doctors, and everyone else call me. My first name is an aka at best, except the only people who insist on using it are ones wrong about the law, so I'm not even really "known as" it.

I once closed a bank account 10 minutes after opening it because they insisted that my debit card be printed as "Joe Smith", not "Frank Smith". I told them I'd absolutely refuse to touch it because that's not my name. I find it interesting that it's mostly local orgs who are a pain in the neck about being wrong about this. You'd think a small local bank would know local law better than a huge multi-national, but the giant bank I opened a business account with was totally fine putting Frank Smith on my accounts. Go figure.

(Somewhat related: That's made me super sympathetic to trans people who want to be known as something other than what's written on their birth certificate. Yeah, I get it. It's nails on a chalkboard when someone calls me Joe, so if you don't want people calling you Tammy anymore, I'm on your side.)

This is technically the law in California, too (and possibly that’s where you live) but in practice the ability to do common law name-change has been abolished at a bureaucratic level.

Since at some point everything official now routes back to either a passport, an immigration/naturalization document, a court-issued name change doc, or a marriage certificate, those are effectively the only ways your name can be changed.

The problem is that all the law can do is make it legal for you to use whatever without it being considered fraudulent to try. But if your law is like CA’s it doesn’t specify other institutions other than possibly state government ones have to honor that and, in particular, it can’t constrain the federal government at all.

So that leaves the DMV as the one possibly effective way to do common law change, on the off chance somewhere will just accept your license as proof of identity. But now that driver’s licenses are subordinate to passport info or equivalent via Real ID, that route is pretty much toast too.

You might still be able to get the alternative state-only DL / state ID with a common law name, and maybe open a bank account with that, but then the credit reporting companies (or Chexsystems) don’t have to honor it so you’re possibly screwed anyway. Plus without a Real ID you’ll have to show a passport to fly domestically, and that will have the name you don’t like.

And, of course, none of this helps with your paycheck because you can’t satisfy an I-9 with a DL. It requires a federal document, too, which—if your state info doesn’t match your federal info—needs to be a fully identifying federal passport/equivalent. So even if you get the bank account with your chosen name, you might run into issues with your checks being to a different one.

At this point, it’s just not worth trying common law name change anymore. You either flip a few hundred for the official change or you accept the fact that you’ll have a public name and a private name.

(And I say this as a “Geo” who strongly dislikes seeing “George Jr” on stuff so I feel your pain. I just tell my employers that my given name only goes on paychecks, benefits, and tax forms, and is to never be used publicly. That has always worked.)

That's what I do, too. If you have to put Joe on the paperwork, fine, but call me Frank.

Sweden has a sensible solution to this (im sure others do too). When you register a name you specify which part is the tilltalsnamn (lit. name of adress). In your case, the names would be disambiguated as Joe Frank Smith and Joe Frank Smith.

Not all systems use that piece of information, but most do.

Yes. I'm Swedish and American TSA/airport security not understanding this is why I mentioned it.

But how are all those people supposed to know that beforehand? Call yourself whatever you want but don't expect anyone to deal with your name-fuckery. It's called first name for a reason.

Curious, if you don't like it why not change it?

Then you can be Frank Smith all the time.

It’s an old family name. I’m the 8th one to have that first name. My kid’s the 9th. I’m proud to have the name, but it’s not what I go by.

Re banks: My bank refused to update my name on my accounts after I authenticated with my card, showed them my passport, name change form and deed poll, as, and I quote, "anyone could have done that". Like yes, I believe that's the point of a deed poll? And what more evidence did they want to prove it was me trying to change the details on my own account?

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