One of my closest friends got married a month ago and told me she changed her name the day
before the wedding, and that all she needed to change it was her ID and the marriage license. I'm off all this week because I'm caring for FI after surgery, and since he's doing better, I thought I'd leave him for an hour and go down to Social Security and change my name. That way, it's one less thing to worry about after the wedding.
When I got up to the window, she asked me a couple of questions to ensure I was who I said I was (my father's first name, where was I born). I handed her the paperwork and she asked me what I wanted my new name to be. I'm dropping my last name entirely and so I'll be Ali Middle Name FI's Last Name. Then she said, "I can't change your name to that because I don't have your middle name in the system. In fact, you're basically two different people right now." I always put my middle name or middle initial on
everything. Apparently, when my parents got me a social security card when I was born, they left off the middle name/middle initial. Yet my middle initial appears on my driver's license and marriage license, and my whole middle name is on my passport.
So, I have to go back tomorrow with my birth certificate to prove that I was born with a middle name, since my ID and marriage license "don't match" my social security records. I told my mom and she was like, "How do they not recognize that you're the same person?" I'm like, "I don't know, Mom,
you're the one who gave me a middle name and then didn't tell Social Security!"
Just a heads-up--make SURE your marriage license has the same name that Social Security has on file, or bring as many IDs and records as you have to prove who you are.
