I managed to get my birth certificate updated!

[Dan Q]

As somebody with an unusual name, I often get questions, and I welcome them.

(Sidenote: I changed my name by deed poll, and since then I've run a website that helps British citizens change their name by deed poll for free and without a solicitor. But that's another story.)

Except that there's one particular question that comes with a particular judgemental tone, of which I'm not so keen. Usually it comes right after somebody learns my name, and it sounds like this:

"Yeah... but what's your real name? You know... the one on your birth certificate?"

Ugh. Fuck you.

Previously, my response has always been to explain that no, my real name is the one I've been using for the last 20 years, and who the hell are you to imply that I'm just "pretending" by claiming that the name that got written onto a form when I was a week old is somehow more-legitimate than the one that everybody in my life calls me.

But as of this week, I've got a new response. I've actually managed to get my birth certificate retroactively updated to show my name as "Dan Q"! I took advantage of an interesting quirk of Scottish law, combined with the fact that I was born in Scotland, to be able to ret-con the name that I've been using for two-thirds of my adult life back onto my birth certificate.

So that's what I'm celebrating this week. Follow the linkie above if you want to see me proudly holding my (revised) birth certificate!

[windit]

That's cool! Congrats! I had my surname legally changed over a decade ago, and here in NZ you're issued a new birth certificate as part of that process (I think, either way I was pretty young and found the bureaucracy really easy to navigate here), so cool that you're helping people deal with more complex systems!

Even after a decade I still get some people referring to my old name as being my 'real' name, like it's some sort of dirty secret they know about me. Strange, and I hate that word 'real'. I'm also not hiding or ashamed of my given name, I'm happy to bring it up when talking about family history, but my current name is real Thank You Very Much.

xoxo

[MediocreMetastasis]

Can I ask why did you change your name? Did you just not like the old one? Did you have an unfortunate surname? Sorry if this is a very personal question.

[Dan Q]

Can I ask why did you change your name? Did you just not like the old one? Did you have an unfortunate surname? Sorry if this is a very personal question.

You absolutely can! (And as the whole story's derivable from posts on my website, I'd

My parents named me Daniel Huntley. Fun fact: the surname derives from the Scottish clan name *Huntly* (which can still be seen in use in places like Huntly Castle. Apparently during one of the (many) wars between Scotland and England, part of the clan defected to the English side and it's from that wing of the clan that those with my (former) spelling derive. So yeah; I'm the descendant of rebellious traitors.

In my 20s I was in an extended relationship. My partner and I were clear from the outset that marriage wasn't "for us"/didn't represent our relationship. But we quite liked the idea of having the same surname! We talked about it for years: I wouldn't want their name, and they wouldn't want mine, but we quite liked the idea of inventing our own surname. But - both being somewhat indecisive people - we didn't come to a decision until one evening when I said "What about a single-character surname? That cuts down the choices to just 26: we could make a decision tonight!"

So that's what we did. We considered a handful of different letters until we settled on Q. It felt quirky, and unusual, and it "broke the rules" by being a letter that's "always followed by a 'U'" (except in our case!). So we wrote out some deeds poll! I changed my surname at the same time, shortening it to Dan: everybody called me Dan anyway (ever since I started university, when the folks I lived with included another "Daniel" and it was simpler for me to be the one to take the shorter form). As a secondary benefit, this gave me a full name of only four characters, which makes filling forms pretty damn fast (except where those forms have badly-written validations that don't permit single-character surnames!).

My then-partner and I eventually broke up. They married somebody else and took his surname, leaving me the only "Q" (they've subsequently divorced... and changed their first name too, but this story only gets even-more complicated if we follow everybody involved!).

But I've been Dan Q for ages (almost 20 years!) now and even though it's a name I first got as part of a declaration of a romantic partnership... by now it feels "mine" and I'm very much attached to it, to the extent that it feels pretty weird if/when I ever come across my old name in the wild.

And because I help many people to change their name via my website FreeDeedPoll.org.uk, I like to keep abreast of all the options for doing so, which was a part of the reason for me making this change to my birth certificate (exploiting a quirk in Scottish law) too.

Anyway: that's the long and the short of it! I originally changed my name to share a name with my partner without marrying; we chose the surname we did because it's unique and unusual; and I still have it even though the relationship's gone and my ex- has since changed their name (twice!) because it feels like "mine".

[MediocreMetastasis]

Wow how neat. I've seen people combine their surnames together but never strip them away until there's only one character.

except where those forms have badly-written validations that don't permit single-character surnames!

You are a programmers worst nightmare. followed by Mr. "; DELETE FROM users;

[Dan Q]

Wow how neat. I've seen people combine their surnames together but never strip them away until there's only one character.

The character we chose (Q) didn't even appear in any of our names to begin with; it was completely out of nowhere!

[windit]

I am so interested in why people change their names!

For me it was following my parents' divorce. I was a young adult and felt conflicted to be carrying my dad's name, but just taking on my mum's name didn't feel right either. My family moved a lot so I also felt quite distant from the family those surnames connected me to. I had been using 'Winter' as a pseudonym for a couple of years at that point, and it dawned on me one day that I could take on a NEW name and didn't have to choose an existing family name. It was like a revelation! And people are still shocked by it when I explain that.

Now, as an older adult who's learned much more about my family history, I probably wouldn't make the same choice - I understand more the meaning behind family names, even when they link you with a family you're not 'proud' of, they still hold importance in terms of connecting with people with shared ancestry. But I don't 'regret' what I did because it was the right choice with the knowledge I had at the time, and helped me build my own identity outside of a kind of crappy family.

Sometimes I think it would be fun to take on another, different name at another life juncture - like a big birthday marking 'mid life', to have a new identity for a different time.

[MediocreMetastasis]

I am so interested in why people change their names!

Me too. Every story I've heard is never really just "I felt like it." It's a trope in media for characters to change their name to something stupid like "Trashboat" or "Mclovin" and immediately regret it. But it seems there's always a very genuine and valid reason as to why people change their names. One my friends IRL are planning to legally change their name since they're transitioning.

[Dan Q]

I am so interested in why people change their names!

Me too! I'm in the privileged position (through running the website I mentioned earlier that helps British citizens change their name for free!) that I get to speak to so many people about their choices. Folks usually only end up emailing me if they have a problem (e.g. "my bank won't accept my name change; what do I do?") or a query (e.g. "I'm a minor, and my parents don't consent to my legal change of name; what are my options?"), but sometimes I get messages of thanks too... and either way I often get to hear curious and interesting tales.

A recent quirk that came up not once but twice in quick succession is that the documentation my site produces is ambiguous on which are forenames and which are surnames in people who have names containing spaces. I spoke to somebody who was changing their name from, let's say, Alice Beatrice Christiano to Alice Beatrice Christiano... where their surname was previously the two words "Beatrice Christiano" but their new surname was going to be just "Christiano", with "Beatrice" becoming a middle name! They'd been given a traditional Brazilian-Portugese multi-word surname from birth, but were now changing their name to share a new name with their partner, and their partner was unwilling to start using a multi-word name (here in the UK, where such name structures are rare, they cause all kinds of typographical errors). So they and their partner would both have the surname "Christiano" but the person who emailed me would retain part of their original surname as a middle name.

I also find myself very interested in the different laws that countries have about name changes. Some countries, for example, have an "approved list" of first names that, if you're registering a birth, a child must be named one of (e.g. Hungary, Denmark, Portugal, France prior to 1993); other countries have specific lists of disallowed names (e.g. did you know that in Australia, it's specifically illegal to name a child "Smelly" or "Ikea"); others still have general rules from which disallowed names might be extrapolated (e.g. here in the UK a birth name is likely to be rejected by a Registrar if it's unpronounceable, obscene, blasphemous, or implies a title you don't actually hold... which presumably means you can't call your son "Prince"... unless they are one?). And don't get me started on naming laws in Japan, or Iceland...