other names question

K

kmurali70

Registered Users (C)
I have used the first name and last name as nicknames since south indians have long names.

when applying for credit card or most utility bills or cable or electricity bills or doc appts since I had given my ssn , i thought the name hardly matters.

However when it comes to officials docs anything concerned with passport,SSN's, federal ,tax, i had always used the correct official first and last names.

So my question is should i be giving all the combinations of my first names and last names used. I would have at least 10 to 15 combinations till now

Example :
sivaramakrishna, harinarayana
I might have used as
siva, hari
or sivaramakrishna, hari
or sevaramakrishna, hari --as operators get names worng
 
For N-400 give the names that you have in Passport and Green Card and your BC.... don't give nick names.
 
If you used different names,from what I have heard, this will flag your namecheck. An IO told me.
 
As far as I know, once you open a credit card with any particular name, and associate it with a SSN or a Driver Liscence number that credit companies use to verify your information, it becomes liganted to your names used.
 
amasamas said:
As far as I know, once you open a credit card with any particular name, and associate it with a SSN or a Driver Liscence number that credit companies use to verify your information, it becomes liganted to your names used.
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Hey Amasamas I think your case will be done soon... keep us updated.
 
USER2345 said:
If you used different names,from what I have heard, this will flag your namecheck. An IO told me.
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so please guys advise me what should i do.
ghantabro says as long as i have not used different names in bc, passport,gc, i am fine,
and you say i have to speicfy the different names if i used a nickname for a electric company tagged to my ssn.

gurus : Please let me know what i should be doing, specify the other names or not
 
atltodallas said:
I don't know what to tell you. i used other names. now my application is stuck in name check.
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If the other names used were really different (like nick names) then the name check could potentially be an issue. If it is a case of using names in other order (say first name and last names reversed as is the case with many Indians) then those shouldn't be an issue since name check checks against all permutations of your first name, last name and middle initial.
Thus if you name is XXX.Y.ZZZ then the names checked would be XXX.Y.ZZZ, ZZZ.Y.XXX, X.Y.ZZZ and so on and on. Also up to 29 combos of your birthdate are also checked (in various formats).

AP
 
atltodallas said:
I don't know what to tell you. i used other names. now my application is stuck in name check.
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so tell me what did you do ?

did you disclose all the nicknames you have used on your n400
or
you did not disclose and your app got tangled on the name check automatically
or
is it a crime not to disclose them ?

(as someone earlier had mentioned that as long as you have not mentioned nicknames for the first and last name in your BC, SSN, GC, MC, you are fine.)
I have done this below only for gym memberships, electricity, cable bills, hospitals, doctors, free car registrations and all the things where they dont care a damn as long as they get their money.
 
Kmurali,

I have a situation similar to yours. I have a really long name as well, and people and various non-government documents have used my name in various forms -- including gym membership, utility bills, hospital visits, friends etc. etc....

I had a speedy naturalization process, and one reason is that I did not list any of my "other" names. During my interview, I asked the adjudicating officer, and was told that other names are reserved for "aliases" or name changes. i.e., if you had multiple passports at any time with different aliases, then notify them. If you had your name changed, then notify them. My adjudicating officer said that notifying them of "nicknames" is both unnecessary and will drag on your process for a very long time. For example, "Richard Cheney" would not list "Dick Cheney" as an alias. It's simply a nickname for his original name.

So to answer your question, I would agree with the posters here that as long as your nicknames do not appear in any federal document -- your BC, SSN, GC, and passport, you are perfectly fine, and best advised to leave your nicknames out.
 
Rwickra said:
Kmurali,

I have a situation similar to yours. I have a really long name as well, and people and various non-government documents have used my name in various forms -- including gym membership, utility bills, hospital visits, friends etc. etc....

I had a speedy naturalization process, and one reason is that I did not list any of my "other" names. During my interview, I asked the adjudicating officer, and was told that other names are reserved for "aliases" or name changes. i.e., if you had multiple passports at any time with different aliases, then notify them. If you had your name changed, then notify them. My adjudicating officer said that notifying them of "nicknames" is both unnecessary and will drag on your process for a very long time. For example, "Richard Cheney" would not list "Dick Cheney" as an alias. It's simply a nickname for his original name.

So to answer your question, I would agree with the posters here that as long as your nicknames do not appear in any federal document -- your BC, SSN, GC, and passport, you are perfectly fine, and best advised to leave your nicknames out.
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You had the nail on the fly's head.
Your answer goes a long way to resolving one more diabolical n400 question,
 
KMurali70,

Sorry to confuse you. I disagree.

A friend of mine had interviewed and he clearly mentioned that the IO asked him to write the other (shortened names) used in the OTHER names section. Might as well write it at the time of filing and save yourself wasted time later on.

For example,
if your Apartment or Utility or something is listed as Hari Siva or Hari Sivaramkrishn then list those 2 as well.

Anything on Utilities, Credit cards, Apartment (proof of residence), House Loans, Driver License...list them.
 
My last name has always been the same. I shorten my first name regurarly. I did not mention it in my N400.
 
I agree if you've shortened your name in any GOVERNMENT document, you SHOULD report it. If you've made your name short (esp your first name, middle name) on credit cards, utility bills etc, I don't think you need to mention this on your N-400. I certainly didn't...However, if you're worried about this you could talk to an attorney. The people at the USCIS customer service are ill informed to answer these kinds of questions, and certainly attorneys are better at this.

As a last resort, I would bring it up during your interview, which is exactly what I did, and as you can see, I've posted what I was told by my officer above.
 
One more thing...

I just realized as I was reading your original post, another common problem that I encounter is people commonly misspell my name because it is so unusual and long. That's certainly not your fault. My electricity bill has my last name misspelled and it's been that way for at least 5 yrs. You cannot report every single permutation of typos of your last name made by other people, to be "correct".

Instead, I use common sense. I would only correct a mistake, if someone misspelled my name on an important government document like drivers license, birth certificate, green card, passport -- if the name that appears in all of these documents is the same, then I would personally not obsess about reporting other abbreviations.
 
Rwickra said:
One more thing...

I just realized as I was reading your original post, another common problem that I encounter is people commonly misspell my name because it is so unusual and long. That's certainly not your fault. My electricity bill has my last name misspelled and it's been that way for at least 5 yrs. You cannot report every single permutation of typos of your last name made by other people, to be "correct".

Instead, I use common sense. I would only correct a mistake, if someone misspelled my name on an important government document like drivers license, birth certificate, green card, passport -- if the name that appears in all of these documents is the same, then I would personally not obsess about reporting other abbreviations.
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What about the Fname Lname reversal? On one document (Indian passport) it is the case for me (which has been corrected in the same document) while everything else carries the correct order of the Fname and Lname. Would this be a problem?

AP
 
No I don't think so, because the FBI namecheck uses different combinations of your firstname, middle name, last name to search their databases. So different order should not be a problem.
 
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