Name change question

March 31, 2016 3:47 PM

Is a minor marriage related name change discrepancy between state driver's license and social security card going to be a problem?

My wife decided to change her last name to mine after we've been married for a while.

At the DMV and on her new license, she is OldFirstName OldMiddleName NewLastname.

At the SS office, she ordered a new card and is OldFirstName OldMiddleName OldLastName_space_NewLastName

That is a small discrepancy. They gave her trouble at the SS office about making her middle name OldMiddleName_space_OldLastName, but did let her put OldLastName_space_NewLastName (space, not hyphen) for her last name for some reason.

In day to day life she plans on going by OldFirstName NewLastName.

Will this this a problem? I don't think we care except in so far as this will cause headaches down the line with insurance/IRS/passports/credit cards etc. We're happiest if no action is required, but can make changes if necessary.

Bonus Question: Her old passport is expired and she'll be needing a new one. Best to go with SS card name? Will there be difficulty if she uses the state ID with a slightly different name as the picture ID for the passport?

posted by Across the pale parabola of joy to Law & Government (11 answers total)

My general experience is that the problem will be utterly unpredictable.

For a few years, I had an enormous hassle for me in terms of filing taxes online - like "spend two hours at an SSA office to fix my name in their database" (my card actually matched, it was an automated fraud-detection system plus their database conversion that caused the problem.)

Conversely, the State Department didn't seem to care that some of my identifying documentation was missing the hyphen (nor did the Canadians when I applied for NEXUS) though it took them longer to check everything than they seemed to think it should. And my mom has had no real problem with FirstName OldMiddle OldLast NewLast (and various permutations thereof) in terms of getting on planes and across borders. The state bar also didn't care, and credit cards are shockingly flexible (sometimes online forms refuse both spaces and hyphens!) My financial-services-criminal-records-check thing was also totally fine despite the Chase security guy completely dropping part of my name; it meant my username was messed up which I find obnoxious.

Oh, California did object when I turned in my Ohio driver's license because it didn't match my SS card and birth certificate. And my electric credit record got messed up, which cost me a $300 deposit when I moved. I think both of those were more about user (customer service rep) error because my name confused them; Ohio fixed it in their system (without saying anything) when I moved back which I find kind of peculiar.

I recommend not pointing out the discrepancies, because it causes more user errors. Exception: when voting and when checking in at Comic-Con, I have to explain that they need to look in the "P" section first. The library seems to do their alphabetizing manually, so it's always a surprise as to where I am. I've spent a lot of time at the wrong registration table in my life, heh. My mom faces this too, but she doesn't feel bothered by it. Anyway, if someone needs to find you in a stack of names, it helps to warn them.

If I ever have kids I will not give them hyphenated names. Or two separate middle names, which causes my sister paperwork grief all the time.
posted by SMPA at 4:42 PM on March 31, 2016

Allow me to vent. The government may not as llow you to have the name you want. My wife's DL name doen't have a middle name or initial because for some bureaucratic reason that could only make sense in a government office.

However, I don't think you will have a problem sice the state DL and federal SSN are rarely if ever compared. Note however that its difficult to change the name on a Medicare card, even I add its an obvious mistake.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:45 PM on March 31, 2016

I will also point out that the longer you let variations persist, they'll propagate further and further. My credit report lists five or six "aliases" now, and whenever I move the USPS ends out not forwarding a bunch of my mail because I don't want to submit a gazillion different forwarding orders.

Though this does make it marginally easier to tell who's selling my name to marketers.
posted by SMPA at 4:46 PM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have FirstName MiddleName MaidenName LastName on my SS card and passport, but I have omitted MaidenName from everything else and for day to day life -- driver's license, banking records, tax forms, everything. The only trouble it has ever caused me is during international travel, when the name on my ticket and the name on my passport don't match up because it's unclear which parts are middle and which parts are last names. And even that isn't MUCH trouble, it just means sometimes I have to go up to the counter instead of being cleared through the self-check-in kiosks at the airport. It's fine.
posted by Andrhia at 4:52 PM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, it will cause problems, in unpredictable ways as SMPA notes above.

In particular make sure everything related to paying taxes (ie the name she works under, etc) matches exactly what social security has her as. And don't be surprised if it's still buggered up.
posted by fingersandtoes at 6:35 PM on March 31, 2016

I've never changed my name with the SSA. I've been filing taxes with my maiden name for 14 years and every other piece of legal identification (driver's license, passport) and all my financial accounts are under my married name.
posted by padraigin at 6:36 PM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Tightened restrictions on voting (needing to prove ID) in some states (esp in the South) have caused problems for women in recently. See for example here and here. So, I'd be careful about that particular aspect.
posted by msbubbaclees at 7:51 PM on March 31, 2016

Nthing unexpected random issues. My mother had trouble opening a bank account for this reason, but I opened accounts with no problems. However, my mother's never had trouble with insurance (health, car, etc) but I have. I eventually changed everything to the same name because taxes and voting became issues.
posted by MuChao at 7:52 PM on March 31, 2016

She just got a bad person at the SS office most likely, they had no problem bumping my maiden name to a second middle name and putting my married last name on there so I'm now |First Name| |Middle Name Maiden Name| |Last Name| Id go back to the SS office and have them fix it. Plenty of people have two middle names.
posted by julie_of_the_jungle at 8:06 PM on March 31, 2016

Seconding that she try to get the SSA to fix it. I did exactly the same thing and they did not give me any trouble. It is weird that they would give her trouble, so it might have been a cranky or uninformed person. I assume she has a form from your state acknowledging the name change and the SSA needs to match that format exactly. Even if the SSA won't fix it yet, I would put the passport in the same format that the state form has since she will need to include that form with the passport renewal. If they still refuse to fix it, I would get your senators and representative involved. There is no maximum length for a middle name. Whatever the passport says is the name that you should put on airline tickets.

I also had to re-register to vote twice with my new name since the first time didn't seem to take.
posted by soelo at 7:25 AM on April 1, 2016

I think it could cause headaches in unpredictable ways at inconvenient times. I'd invest the time to get the name right at the SSA and the DMV up front.

Bonus Answer: If there has to be a discrepancy, I would make the federal identifications (SSA + passport) match.
posted by *s at 8:16 AM on April 1, 2016