Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Incorrect spelling of your name on government records

This has probably been discussed before but does anybody know why government agencies don't spell your name just like it's spelled on your birth certificate? My legal name is a combination of capitol and small case letters with an apostrophe in my last name (Irish ancestors). Government agencies always spell my name with all caps without the apostrophe with the exception of my SS card, Medicare card and DD214 which do contain the apostrophe. This sometimes causes problems accessing my with health and financial records. It's not a good feeling when you call your health insurance company and they tell you that they have no record of you in their system. The reason I am bringing this up is that I have to renew my Texas driver's license in January and am required to take all kinds of ID including my Texas issued birth certificate. When I renewed my DL 12 years ago I asked the clerk to correct my name on my DL and she refused saying it was harder to type. I sent an email to the Texas Dept. of Public Safety a while ago and hope to at least get a response before I go to renew my DL. I tried calling them but you can't talk to live person. My main question is what gives them the authority to change my legal name.

One thing is the difference between the key board on a computer and that of a typewriter.

Some of the computerized forms were made to not take characters, just letters. (Don't know why)

Years ago Readers Digest had one in their Humor in Uniform section. A guy named R B Jones enlisted. His legal first and middle names were just those initials. The recruiter told him to put 'only' in parenthesis after each one so it would be handled correctly. R (only) B (only) Jones.
Yup. All of his military records had him as Ronly Bonly Jones.

I arrested a guy from Indonesia who had only one name, which is not uncommon there. The computerized booking program would not accept that; I had to use the same name for both given and surnames before it would let me move on. When it came to parents names, the same thing, they both got his name as their surnames, too.

De-Morris
La-corey
La-Ron
Le-Vaughan
Lee-Ron
D'andre
D'andrea
D'angelo
D'ante
D'lon
D'marco
D'marcus
D'marreio
D'Sean
D'shaun
Da-Jon
Da-Juan
Da-Shawn
Ja-ron
De'ron
De'Shane
De'vegas
De-Angelo
De-John

Me too...

I had/have some minor issues with my name and 'the government'.

I finally got the Navy to get my middle name correct on paper records after about 5 years of trying, but the computer generated output result are still less than sterling.

When I visit places that require I enter my name into their system I specifically request they get it correct... sometime they do and others times they make little attempt to get it correct. It is in the case of the latter that I call them by their name and purposefully get it incorrect, some variant, and when they correct me... We try harder to get mine correct.

After all, it is just a name that my parents gave me... why shouldn't bank tellers, Social Security workers, police, hospital records technicians and about anyone else with a keyboard/pen be able to give me a different one???

Everyone just calls me Trouble.

I think I would have asked her "It will take you how much longer?"

My father was essentially illiterate when I was born due to the fact he was only allowed to go to school about 2 mos a year. When I was born you had to go to the courthouse to name your child for the public record and receive a birth certificate. Well the judge asked him what my name would be he said George Carlos. The judge asked him to spell it. He said Gorge Carlos and that is what it says on my birth certificate. When I joined the Navy the recruiter said that a name like Gorge would cause a whole lot of hassle let alone how many fights it would cause with people [bleep] with me. I signed some form to supposedly to change my name officially to George. No problem for 45 years until I had to submit to a background check for a job I applied for. I almost didn't get the job because my birth certificate and my life didn't match. After explaining over and over I finally got the job after someone finally found the name change form somewhere in my Navy records.


GEORGE (AKA) GORGE

I just renewed my NRA account online. The first 5 attempts failed because of the error "The spelling of your last name doesn't match our records". When you first click on your name you get a suggested spelling so I selected that on the first attempt. When that failed I spelled it the way it is on my NRA card, all caps with an apostrophe and that failed. After I tried 3 more spelling combinations I called NRA and explained the problem. I finally had to interrupt the young lady who was trying to talk me into buying stuff and told her that all I wanted to know was how is my name spelled on the screen she looking at right now. She told me how it was spelled but didn't say anything about capitol letters or whether there was an apostrophe in the selling. I asked her to tell me exactly how my name was spelled and it turns out that the NRA has changed my last name in their records to all caps without the apostrophe. Typed my last name in all caps without the apostrophe and I'm still an NRA member.

NRA is a huge PITA, in more ways than one!

My last name is York. Y-O-R-K.

You would not believe how often I have to spell it out for some numbnutz over the phone or even in person.