A Paperback Writer said...
I meant to ask earlier: how did you come to give yourself a middle name?
July 12, 2008 3:59 PM
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My parents didn't give any of the 4 of us middl
e names, as my mom put it "it was hard enough coming up with first names." I was young at the time or I would probably have asked "what's so damn hard about Alex, Steve, Lisa and Danny?", but, alas, I never asked. Fast forward to when I was 12, looking to get my first paper route. At the time you didn't get a Social Security number at birth, you got it when you first started looking for work. I was filling out the form to apply for it and it asked for my full name. Well, my full name is just first and last, so I filled them in. Directly under the section for full name and current address, was a section titled Working Name, which according to the directions did not have to be the same as your legal n
ame. I was old enough to want to assert my individuality, but still young enough that I worried about changing it completely, so I just added a middle name, and I had always liked Michael. (I named the stuffed dog I got for my 6th birthday Mikey.) Now, if I'd been able to hold off getting a job until I was hanging around Ed in high school, you just might know me as George Washington Hayduke or Ivan Rosski.
e names, as my mom put it "it was hard enough coming up with first names." I was young at the time or I would probably have asked "what's so damn hard about Alex, Steve, Lisa and Danny?", but, alas, I never asked. Fast forward to when I was 12, looking to get my first paper route. At the time you didn't get a Social Security number at birth, you got it when you first started looking for work. I was filling out the form to apply for it and it asked for my full name. Well, my full name is just first and last, so I filled them in. Directly under the section for full name and current address, was a section titled Working Name, which according to the directions did not have to be the same as your legal n
ame. I was old enough to want to assert my individuality, but still young enough that I worried about changing it completely, so I just added a middle name, and I had always liked Michael. (I named the stuffed dog I got for my 6th birthday Mikey.) Now, if I'd been able to hold off getting a job until I was hanging around Ed in high school, you just might know me as George Washington Hayduke or Ivan Rosski.
6 comments:
So, does that make it a legal name, then? Even though it's not the same as your birth certificate? Like, is that the name on your passport?
Sorry, it's just such an unusual story.
My parents got my SS number for me right after I was born. Since I changed my name back to my birth name after that *&^% I had married took off for the younger woman, and since I had by then started renting the house from my parents, I came full circle, and the name and address that appear on my SS card (the only one I've ever had, incidentally) are correct, more than 4 decades later.
Yup, it's legal. I haven't had a passport since I was 10, so that has no middle name, but my driver's license, my checking accounts, the titles to my cars and even the deed to my house include the middle name.
Cool.
Although Ivan Rosski's a pretty cool alternative, too.
Interesting story about your middle name.
Paperback. Sorry to read about your unfortunate name rechange.
Oh, the namechange wasn't the problem! HE was the problem!
Honestly, I don't know why I ever changed my name to his in the first place; that tradition is a hold over from when marriage was basically a form of slavery and the man owned the woman and everything she had.
Thanks anyway, though.
Paperback: I understand the correction. Problems usually are much deeper than just changing a name.
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