> If someone claims that their legal name has changed, it makes perfect sense that any organization which needs to operate with legal names will be checking to

> If someone claims that their legal name has changed, it makes perfect sense that any organization which needs to operate with legal names will be checking to see that the papers supporting this claim are real, and I don't see why this should be considered harmful. The misunderstanding here is subtle but important. I absolutely agree that a human needs to verify _legal_ name changes. This is why I suggest that legal names shouldn't be recorded most of the time. Humans do not need to be involved, generally, with name changes that have no legal or tax implications, so when legal names aren't the default, that human's time can be used elsewhere, and the user's experience streamlined.