Naturalization/Passport/Birth Certificate Name Problem. PLEASE HELP! I am beyond desperate

[König]

I guess I am the only weird person who not only did not remove the patronimic from the application but also changed the driving licence and SS card to include it as a part of my name after the naturalisation My situation was similar except that the GC had my patronimic since the beginning, but it was absent from the DL and the SS card. At the citizenship interview, the IO (as WASP as it can be) actually tried to persuade me to use my father's name as a middle name without -ovich. Apparently, he was familiar with this culture enough to be able to remove -ovich on his own, but I insisted that he left -ovich in place. I did change my first name and surname, so I guess I felt a bit guilty and thus did not do anything about my dad's name

 

[Rambi]

I did have a copy of my birth certificate but the IO did not look at it. She did look at my passport where the patronimic was present, in Russian but not in English.
The patronimic was also written on the bottom portion of my green card (where there was something like machine readable code). However, in the main "name" field of my green card only my last and first names were shown.

A few years before submitting N-400 I applied for a reentry permit. Although I only listed my first and last name on the application, the reentry permit arrived with my patronimic (as -vich) in the "middle name" field. Apparently whomever was processing the I-131 application noticed that in the copy of my Russian passport the patronimic was present; they transliterated it into English and wrote it down as my middle name (although I certainly did not ask for it). Apparently at the time USCIS was on some kind of a campaign to try to give every applicant a middle name - I think they got over it now. I suspect that after that episode with the reentry permit my patronomic was listed in my A-file as my middle name. The IO did not read Russian but she told me that she was aware of the patronimic usage in Russia and the former Soviet states and that she knew that in Russian the patronimic was considered a part of the legal name.


In any case, what the IO did in my case was probably the safest solution. She processed a name change request which allowed me to officially drop the patronimic, and I did not even have to change any of my U.S. documents (driver's license, credit cards, etc), since I never used the patronimic there.

Thanks gshox and baikal3 for your reply.

Just wondering if you need to have or present your original Birth Certificate at the interview. Together with the I-797C interview appointment NOA, I’ve also received N-659 (Naturalization Interview Document Check List) stating which documents you should bring with you to the interview. From what I read I need to bring my GC, Government issued ID and passport. It is not required to bring the Birth Certificate.

@gshox, @baikal3, did you receive a YL (Yellow Letter) asking you to have your birth certificate and the English Translation with you at the interview? I’m just thinking it may be better not to have my certificate with me to avoid unnecessary questions around the naming issue?