4 ms·

There Is No Such Thing as a “Legal Name”

23 points by xena 5y ago

garbagecoder 5y ago
The abstract contradicts the headline; what the authors are saying is that there is more than one name that the law gives status to. Gotta love law reviews (which, aren't peer reviewed, typically). At the end of the day, if you want to change your name on most official documents, you have to go through a process in a court that involves publication, notice, and hearing.
- tedyoung 5y ago
  That's what the "a" in "..as A 'Legal Name'" means, right? That there's not one, all-encompassing, in all legal situations, name.
  - saghm 5y ago
    English is ambiguous; "a" also could just mean existence rather than singularity. It would be totally reasonable to say "there is a legal name; there are potentially other legal names as well".
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    There are multiple Y Combinator startups. Referring to something as "one, all-encompassing, in all legal situations, Y Combinator startup" is clearly not canonical. Does that mean there's no such thing as a Y Combinator startup?
- toast0 5y ago
  In the article they say: > Therefore, this Article might just as easily—though we think it is not quite as punchy—be titled "There are About Seven and a Half Such Things as a Legal Name." Which I think would be a better received title here.
- jcrawfordor 5y ago
  The title of the article is evidently draw from the quote the article is opened with (from a court on this issue), and seems to me like a perfectly reasonable use of the English language in that the article is specifically addressing the "legal name" as a commonly understood concept, not in some abstract sense of the meaning of the words. As the article points out, one of the fundamental issues here is that while "legal name" is commonly defined as "the name on your identification," it is not unusual for people to have different identification documents with different names. While the US government has made an attempt to significantly curtail this happening, it remains the case for many and I happen to be one such example without even an unusual story. It's also not unusual for courts, perhaps the definition of "legal," to use names other than the one on identification when recognizing parties---indeed, the courts are far more flexible on this issue than the DMV. While a court order is required to satisfy certain requirements the entire system is very ad-hoc and not well defined, and there are multiple circumstances in which it's possible to e.g. cause a state government to issue identification with a different name without a court order (and this even happens accidentally or for incidental reasons with some frequency). Much of this flows from the fact that the United States does not maintain any official registry of persons, but for various reasons that's usually viewed as undesirable. As recently as the mid-century it wasn't unusual for people's birth certificates to not even give a name, if the parent's hadn't chosen one yet when the doctor filled out the paperwork. For many years this almost never caused problems, but today's aggressive approach to identity verification has lead someone I know to have to get a court order in order to renew their driver's license with the same name it had previously shown. And of course the same name in SSA records, which is usually the closest thing there is to a "standard." If you start working in an environment where badges are issued based on Federal standards for a "legal name" you will start noticing just how frequently these kinds of things come up, and it's nowhere near as simple as being based on "birth name" or immigration records. The end result is that things like being issued a staff badge with a different name than the one on your driver's license are not really that unusual, because it turns out that when you actually look close no one actually agrees on what your "legal name" is (the article is centered around exactly this point). In practice most everyone just considers your "legal name" to be the one on whatever dataset they're working against, whether that's birth certificate, state-issued ID, or social security registry. There are many cases where these are different, despite the best efforts of REAL ID! And on top of that technical constraints can lead to really stupid situations like one I ran into years ago in which an employer (not even a government one) refused to issue them a badge with their name written in any way other than having their first name consist of multiple names concatenated (without spaces) and then truncated in the middle of one of them, because due to DMV system limitations that was how their name was printed on their driver's license and, in the sense of an organization that has never really thought this out, that made their "legal name" "TAYLORBYRNEMCCAR". I think everyone agrees that situation is dumb but it's honestly the tip of the iceberg of people getting their name represented in weird ways because of organizations trying to enforce this concept of a "legal name."
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
xrd 5y ago
My favorite article about legal names is this one from the LA Times. "In Japan, Parents Play Devil’s Advocate in Naming Child : Controversy: Couple fights authorities’ ban on satanic moniker. Now the Cabinet has gotten involved." https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-15-mn-12064-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-15-mn-12064-... The gist is that in Japan names have to be composed of the official kanji set. A couple figured out they could name their child "Satan" but the Japanese authorities didn't like that particular combination, so the couple sued.
dopylitty 5y ago
The idea of a legal name not existing is quite interesting as someone who has never gone by the name on their various legal documents. One thing that I couldn’t stop thinking as I read is that the review doesn’t get into what the “thing” is that a name refers to. There’s this assumption that a human is a single unitary object but in reality we are composed of billions of cells, all with slightly different genetic code (in the case of regular mutation) or completely different genetic code (in the case of biome and virome). Which of those cells does my name refer to? What if I have cancer or am pregnant? Are those cells also using the same name…until they aren’t? The world is so multifaceted and fractal in nature but we sometimes have to put things into boxes with names to make sense of them and their relationship to the rest of the world. Those boxes aren’t facts or truths so much as they are generally agreed upon simplifications that make existing in a society possible. They can also change.
bradknowles 5y ago
There’s an issue in certain Northern European countries, too. They have a register of all names that have legally been used within the country, and if you give birth to a child there or you want to change your name for some reason, you have to go through their process that involves that database. If the name you want isn’t available, then you can’t use it. Also: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

23 points by xena 5y ago

The abstract contradicts the headline; what the authors are saying is that there is more than one name that the law gives status to. Gotta love law reviews (which, aren't peer reviewed, typically). At the end of the day, if you want to change your name on most official documents, you have to go through a process in a court that involves publication, notice, and hearing.

tedyoung 5y ago
That's what the "a" in "..as A 'Legal Name'" means, right? That there's not one, all-encompassing, in all legal situations, name.
- saghm 5y ago
  English is ambiguous; "a" also could just mean existence rather than singularity. It would be totally reasonable to say "there is a legal name; there are potentially other legal names as well".
- torstenvl 5y ago
  There are multiple Y Combinator startups. Referring to something as "one, all-encompassing, in all legal situations, Y Combinator startup" is clearly not canonical. Does that mean there's no such thing as a Y Combinator startup?
toast0 5y ago
In the article they say: > Therefore, this Article might just as easily—though we think it is not quite as punchy—be titled "There are About Seven and a Half Such Things as a Legal Name." Which I think would be a better received title here.
jcrawfordor 5y ago
The title of the article is evidently draw from the quote the article is opened with (from a court on this issue), and seems to me like a perfectly reasonable use of the English language in that the article is specifically addressing the "legal name" as a commonly understood concept, not in some abstract sense of the meaning of the words. As the article points out, one of the fundamental issues here is that while "legal name" is commonly defined as "the name on your identification," it is not unusual for people to have different identification documents with different names. While the US government has made an attempt to significantly curtail this happening, it remains the case for many and I happen to be one such example without even an unusual story. It's also not unusual for courts, perhaps the definition of "legal," to use names other than the one on identification when recognizing parties---indeed, the courts are far more flexible on this issue than the DMV. While a court order is required to satisfy certain requirements the entire system is very ad-hoc and not well defined, and there are multiple circumstances in which it's possible to e.g. cause a state government to issue identification with a different name without a court order (and this even happens accidentally or for incidental reasons with some frequency). Much of this flows from the fact that the United States does not maintain any official registry of persons, but for various reasons that's usually viewed as undesirable. As recently as the mid-century it wasn't unusual for people's birth certificates to not even give a name, if the parent's hadn't chosen one yet when the doctor filled out the paperwork. For many years this almost never caused problems, but today's aggressive approach to identity verification has lead someone I know to have to get a court order in order to renew their driver's license with the same name it had previously shown. And of course the same name in SSA records, which is usually the closest thing there is to a "standard." If you start working in an environment where badges are issued based on Federal standards for a "legal name" you will start noticing just how frequently these kinds of things come up, and it's nowhere near as simple as being based on "birth name" or immigration records. The end result is that things like being issued a staff badge with a different name than the one on your driver's license are not really that unusual, because it turns out that when you actually look close no one actually agrees on what your "legal name" is (the article is centered around exactly this point). In practice most everyone just considers your "legal name" to be the one on whatever dataset they're working against, whether that's birth certificate, state-issued ID, or social security registry. There are many cases where these are different, despite the best efforts of REAL ID! And on top of that technical constraints can lead to really stupid situations like one I ran into years ago in which an employer (not even a government one) refused to issue them a badge with their name written in any way other than having their first name consist of multiple names concatenated (without spaces) and then truncated in the middle of one of them, because due to DMV system limitations that was how their name was printed on their driver's license and, in the sense of an organization that has never really thought this out, that made their "legal name" "TAYLORBYRNEMCCAR". I think everyone agrees that situation is dumb but it's honestly the tip of the iceberg of people getting their name represented in weird ways because of organizations trying to enforce this concept of a "legal name."

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

xrd 5y ago

My favorite article about legal names is this one from the LA Times. "In Japan, Parents Play Devil’s Advocate in Naming Child : Controversy: Couple fights authorities’ ban on satanic moniker. Now the Cabinet has gotten involved." https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-15-mn-12064-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-15-mn-12064-... The gist is that in Japan names have to be composed of the official kanji set. A couple figured out they could name their child "Satan" but the Japanese authorities didn't like that particular combination, so the couple sued.

dopylitty 5y ago

The idea of a legal name not existing is quite interesting as someone who has never gone by the name on their various legal documents. One thing that I couldn’t stop thinking as I read is that the review doesn’t get into what the “thing” is that a name refers to. There’s this assumption that a human is a single unitary object but in reality we are composed of billions of cells, all with slightly different genetic code (in the case of regular mutation) or completely different genetic code (in the case of biome and virome). Which of those cells does my name refer to? What if I have cancer or am pregnant? Are those cells also using the same name…until they aren’t? The world is so multifaceted and fractal in nature but we sometimes have to put things into boxes with names to make sense of them and their relationship to the rest of the world. Those boxes aren’t facts or truths so much as they are generally agreed upon simplifications that make existing in a society possible. They can also change.

bradknowles 5y ago

There’s an issue in certain Northern European countries, too. They have a register of all names that have legally been used within the country, and if you give birth to a child there or you want to change your name for some reason, you have to go through their process that involves that database. If the name you want isn’t available, then you can’t use it. Also: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...