I have an unusual name.
For one thing, it’s a man’s name. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into a classroom/coffee shop/job interview and introduced myself, only to be met with a look of utter confusion. The person I’m meeting always thinks I’m a dude, and is inevitably surprised and confused when I turn out to be a woman. Generally they recover themselves well, but it’s easy to spot the mix up.
The second strange thing about my name is that it’s spelled with two n’s. My mother, in an attempt to feminize the name, sent in my birth certificate registration with my first name as Jordann.
Unfortunately, this was before the era of unique names, and what came back on my birth certificate was Jordan. She sent it back two more times with the correct spelling, each time it came back with Jordan. So she did what any normal person would do, she gave up.
And so the confusion begins…
Even though my birth certificate said Jordan, my mother enrolled me in school as Jordann and set up my medicare with the name Jordann.
This small clerical error resulted in a frustrating set of circumstances that would follow me my entire life. I effectively have two names, depending on which set of IDs you look at.
Sometimes I’m Jordan
You see, on half of my IDs (anything that required a birth certificate to obtain) my name is spelled Jordan. So for things from the government, like my SIN card, my driver’s licence, and my passport, I’m Jordan.
Sometimes I’m Jordann
On the other half of my IDs, my name is spelled Jordann. Everything related to school, the CRA, my banking information and my credit score, are all under the name Jordann. My employment records, the name that’s registered to my car, my (now gone) student loans, and my car insurance, all Jordann.
Finally Fixing the Error
I’ve been able to operate somewhat effectively with this dual name scenario for 25 years. Sure it caused an occasional inconvenience, like the time a security guard at the Orlando airport hassled me for my passport saying Jordan and my plane ticket saying Jordann, but mostly it’s been alright.
That is, until I got married, and started trying to change my last name. It turns out that for most name changes, you need a birth certificate and a marriage certificate as proof. Unfortunately, for me, both of those documents had the incorrect spelling of my name. Even when I sent in my request for the official copy of my marriage certificate with my correctly spelled new name, and it was promptly denied because it didn’t match my birth certificate. Womp womp.
After chatting with Vital Statistics, I found out that this sort of thing does happen occasionally, and I could file for a misprint. I only needed to gather up the following:
- Proof that I was going by Jordann from before age 10 (an ID, not so easy to find because my parents are divorced and a lot of that stuff got lost in transition.)
- Written consent.
- Written consent from my husband (because I’m also changing our marriage certificate.)
- Two pieces of ID with the name spelled Jordann (a CRA letter and my medicare card.)
- $65 bucks for a new birth certificate, new marriage certificate, and the name change fee.)
So I sent all of that off on April 1st, thinking it would take a month or more to hear back. But yesterday, in the mail, came my new, correct birth certificate and marriage certificate. This whole process was really irritating and annoying, but wow am I ever happy that I have finally righted this wrong that has plagued me for years.
So, officially, it’s Jordann, not Jordan.
This weekend, I’m heading out to get my new driver’s licence, SIN card, and passport. After that I’m going to be changing every last bit of information over to my official name: Jordann Brown.
Finally!
Have you ever experienced a problem like this? I think it’s pretty rare.