Name issue and approaching interview

H

hattrick

Registered Users (C)
Dear Gurus,
I have some discrepancy in my name and want to see if there will be any issues or delays? or whether they can be rectified with proper documentation.
Here are the list of documents on how my name is recorded, for obvious reasons I am using a anonymous name.

Passport - Doe (Last) John (First) Christopher(middle)

SSN Card (1994) - Doe (Last) John (First) Christopher(middle)

I-485 petition and GC - Doe John C.

SSN office sent me a letter changing my name to same as GC in 2006

so New SSN card (2006) - Doe John C.

Birth Certificate - Doe Jhon C. (Please notice the spelling mistake) Tragically my spelling in Birth certificae itself is wrong.

In N400 petittion I just put in "Doe John" , I did not put in the middle name because they asked me to put in full middle name instead of just initial. Just to avoid confusion I did not put in anything.

Will this be a problem, Should I get a new Birth certificate issued from India with the correct name format. I dont remember if I sent the same birth certificate for my I 485 application. Please advice how to proceed?
 
I dont remember which birth certificate I sent with I-485, I remember correcting the birth certificate at that time, maybe in a rush I just sent the original one. I am looking for in my current files but could not locate it.
 
hattrick said:
I dont remember which birth certificate I sent with I-485, I remember correcting the birth certificate at that time, maybe in a rush I just sent the original one. I am looking for in my current files but could not locate it.
Click to expand...
Do you have one Birth certificate or two birth certificate? you can have the copy of Birth certificate from your I-485 file and Copy of I-485 File will be with lawyer office.
 
They consider the birth certificate name to be the official legal name (unless there is a legal action like marriage which changed your name). So if you want your naturalization certificate to have the spelling you want, you should present a birth certificate at the interview which has the spelling you want.

The other aspect is the "other names used" on the N-400. If you did not already list the other spelling there, they will order another name check to search for the new spelling.
 
hattrick said:
Dear Gurus,
I have some discrepancy in my name and want to see if there will be any issues or delays? or whether they can be rectified with proper documentation.
Here are the list of documents on how my name is recorded, for obvious reasons I am using a anonymous name.

Passport - Doe (Last) John (First) Christopher(middle)

SSN Card (1994) - Doe (Last) John (First) Christopher(middle)

I-485 petition and GC - Doe John C.

SSN office sent me a letter changing my name to same as GC in 2006

so New SSN card (2006) - Doe John C.

Birth Certificate - Doe Jhon C. (Please notice the spelling mistake) Tragically my spelling in Birth certificae itself is wrong.

In N400 petittion I just put in "Doe John" , I did not put in the middle name because they asked me to put in full middle name instead of just initial. Just to avoid confusion I did not put in anything.

Will this be a problem, Should I get a new Birth certificate issued from India with the correct name format. I dont remember if I sent the same birth certificate for my I 485 application. Please advice how to proceed?
Click to expand...

I would suggest that you don't bring up the birth certificate issue unless the IO specifically asks about it. Just show your passport and your green card. I also had some name discrepancies in my documents and they were all sorted out at the interview; hopefully the same will happen in your case.

In my case there were two issues:
1) whether my Russian patronimic should be counted as my middle name
and
2) how my first name should be spelled.

I had never used my patronimic as a middle name in my U.S. documents; in my Russian passports the patronimic was given in Russian but not transliterated into English. Also, I had four Russian passports: my current one and three old ones. Russia slowly changed transliteration rules from French to English (in fact my first passport was in French, and the three subsequent ones were in English) and my two newer passports had a slightly different transliteration of my first name compared to the first two passports. It was all sorted out at the interview. The IO decided that the patronimic was my middle name and amended my N-400 accordingly. She also added a name change request to my application to have the patronimic dropped. She did inquire if I had my birth certificate with me at the time of application, which I did not; this did not prevent her from approving my application. She used the original spelling of my first name (from the first two passports and the green card).

Basically, the IOs are trained in dealing with minor name discrepancies and, as long as you get a reasonably competent IO, you should be fine.
 
Thanks Baikal3 and other responses.

Baikal3
Your issue is very similar to mine, I dont have my middle name listed in any of the US immigration documents although it is present in my Indian passport. I am having a new Birth certificate issued from India. As you said, I will bring up that issue only if required.

Another question, you said, she initiated another name change after approving your petition. Did that cause any delay for Oath ceremony? Would it have been the same day oath ceremony, if not for the name change during the interview.

Thanks a lot again.
 
hattrick said:
Thanks Baikal3 and other responses.

Baikal3
Your issue is very similar to mine, I dont have my middle name listed in any of the US immigration documents although it is present in my Indian passport. I am having a new Birth certificate issued from India. As you said, I will bring up that issue only if required.

Another question, you said, she initiated another name change after approving your petition. Did that cause any delay for Oath ceremony? Would it have been the same day oath ceremony, if not for the name change during the interview.

Thanks a lot again.
Click to expand...

Where I live same-day oaths are not available. In my case the name change did not cause a delay in the oath ceremony. However, that was something of a special case. In my part of central Illinois the federal courts claimed exclusive jurisdiction over naturalization oaths, so no administrative oaths are available here and all oaths are judicial. My interview was in late March and the next available oath ceremony in my town was in mid-May. That's the ceremony I got scheduled for. In places where administrative oaths are available, I would imagine that a name change might delay the oath a bit, but I think this is a small price to pay for a clean interview.
 
Hattrick,

I had the same issue!!! My name is mis-spelled on my birth certificate. The IO actually caught it and asked me what was going on. I was sweating profusely at the point and told him that it is indeed a misspelling and every other piece of documentation I have has the right spelling. He asked for my passport (has the right spelling) and I handed it to him. He pondered over it for a few seconds and then said that its not a problem. He made a note of the misspelling (on my BC) on the application. And that was it. He went through the rest of my interview and approved me!

I understand that I may have just gotten lucky but I have a feeling it wont be a big deal. However, if you have time, I recommend getting a new BC from India with the correct spelling.

As for the middle name, I used my full middle name everywhere! So that was not an issue for me.
 
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