Maybe that’s what’s been throwing you off since you’ve become a Mod. Forgive me for sounding maudlin, but I kind of miss This Year’s Model.
If you want to fix that, you’re living on the wrong side of the slope. 
Go try again.
This individual will not any longer be a problem to you.
(The Sevens of Gitmo take our duties quite seriously. And really, the guy is proving to be great fun here and a real crowd pleaser!)
—um, remember you never heard any of this.
That’s the way it worked for my mom, whose birth certificate shows her as Maria. For, well, forever, she’s been known as Mary. That’s what she signs everything.
You’re right. But, sadly, there is not much of a home for a liberal/libertarian anywhere in the political spectrum in this country.
Yes, you’re right again, my posting style has changed.
My license has printed my first name, middle initial, and last name. I never use the middle initial in signing things. On one license renewal quite a few years ago (before online renewal), I filled out the necessary form and signed my name as usual, “Eddy Freddy”.
The Registry guy I was dealing with looked at it and said, “What’s your middle initial”? I said, “T, but I never use it.”
He wrote a “T” in between “Eddy” and “Freddy”, in a handwriting utterly different from how I’d do it.
the offenders I work with have an especially trying (bad pun for free) time w/this. we have DNA samples, fingerprints, case histories and years of daily records on them, but the DMV won’t recognize prison ID as anything valid.
Hamish is Hamish’s middle name, and he’s had a hell of a time with certain people/offices/companies convincing them that he is who he says he is.
Certain bright people, who would (hopefully) not have a problem equating Matthew Initial _mcl with Matthew I. _mcl, are thrown into spasm when asked to conclude that F. Hamish Lastname could well be the same person as Firstname Hamish Lastname.
I had a situation last year when a friend and I went to Phoenix to visit another friend for a few days. My friend here had bought our tickets and we flew out separately but flew back together. No problem on the outbound but on the way back I was stopped at security in Phoenix because the name on my ID didn’t match the name on my ticket (keep in mind, this hadn’t been a problem in Chicago).
Of course, I explained and eventually they let me through but I still occasionally have to remind myself that my middle name, which I go by, isn’t the same as my first name which is on my driver’s license. In fact I almost made the same mistake when I bought a plane ticket this year. Fortunately I caught it in time.
How do you get a new birth certificate? That is a record of your birth, it can’t (to my knowledge) be changed 16 or so years later.
You need to bring in the name change doc, or as everyone else has said, go find a different DMV
You can request a new birth certificate from the relavent local bureacracy. People do it when they change their name or gender or if the original certificate has a mistake. I never saw the point in doing this, though.
OK, I just looked up how to do it in NYC. In addition to the name-change court order, it requires a current photo-ID. 
This is called “common usage” and it’s perfectly valid without any kind of court proceeding. If you have ample documentation of the common usage then it should be fine. It should be a no-brainer especially if it’s a shortened form.
There are at least 4 people in my extended family who go by their middle names or abbreviations of their middle names as their common usage. Not even of their own volition… their parents called them that way. It causes them no end of hassle. I decree that none of my kids shall have middle names, and their first names shall be familiar and acceptable enough to be used as a first name by a reasonable person. If they don’t like it, hey, at least I tried to give them the best raw material I could.
This was my understanding do- your Birth Certificate could be in the name of “John Smith”, but if you wanted to call yourself “Rameses Nibblick III, Kerplunk Kerplunk, Whoops, Where’s My Thribble” then you’d be well within your rights to do so (but good luck fitting that onto most forms!).
Don’t most forms have a “Preferred Name” option on them anyway, just to cover these sorts of eventualities?
Lots of things that are legal under the common law aren’t actually legal in a lot of states, because the states have abolished aspects of the common law and replaced them with statutory law. Do you have a cite that Michigan still follows the common law on name changes?
If you manage to avoid Gitmo, and ever again find yourself inside a voting booth, remember to thank the Republican party for the Real ID Act.
Now that you know it’s for your own safety, I’ll bet you’re glad the DMV jerked you around like a ball on a string, right? Only a traitor wouldn’t be.
My birth certificate said that I was born on July 7th when I was actually born on July 14th which is what my driver’s license said. I didn’t know about the mistake until I needed a copy of my birth certificate to get a passport.
Would you believe that the BC was in the basement of a home for the elderly and I had to pay someone to search through old files?
Then I had to submit documents to support that a mistake had indeed been made.
I went to the trouble because I had to swear that the information was true to get my passport. Further, I didn’t want to go overseas with contradictory papers.
I changed my first name legally and had a brand spanking new birth certificate virtually shoved down my throat. And they confiscated my old one.
Do they not issue with a different certificate in the US? Or at least a ‘Change of Name’ declaration document? Or you know, something?
Or does the Name Changes window man just ring a little bell, smile and and say ‘Your new name is ready!’ Have a nice day!’ and you walk away?
Try not having a middle name, I’ve had clerks argue with me that I must have a middle name and that I’m just embarrassed by it. Nope, no middle name.
My wife doesn’t have a middle name.
For most of her life my wife didn’t have a birth certificate either – just a bunch of court documents testifying that she was, in fact, alive. (The hospital forgot to file paperwork.)
It was most amusing when we moved to British Columbia and she had to get a driver’s license and showed up with her stack of papers. In French. Legal French.
Bosda’s Rules
For Interacting With Bureaucracy
Without Going Mad
[ol]
[li]“Yes” can be turned into “No”, & vice versa if a sufficient amount of wordage is applied to the problem[/li][li]Never accept a “No” from somebody who hasn’t got the authority to say “Yes”.[/li][li]If at first you don’t succeed, apply again elsewhere.[/li][li]Be sweet–you’ll suprise people.[/li][li]Do not apply for anything on a Monday Morning, or on a Friday afternoon.[/li][li]Do not apply for anything 30 minutes before Lunch, or closing time.[/li][li]Never shout.[/li][li]Never use foul language, even if we deserve it.[/li][li]Never threaten.[/li][li]Never try to throw your weight around.[/li][li]We know your taxes pay our salaries, & we think you’re a cheapskate.[/li][li]If you really had important friends, you wouldn’t even be speaking to us. You’d be handled by our Boss.[/li][li]Fill out everything. Even if it isn’t any of our business. Just put something there, we don’t care what.[/li][li]Never forget that the last guy who asked for what you want was a real jerk. Or, at least, act like he was.[/li][/ol]
FWIW, when my ex-husband adopted my oldest daughter (in California), the adoption was finalized by re-issuing her birth certificate with my (then) husband’s last name. There were no “adoption papers”.