March 10th is Middle Name Pride Day. In 2009, the TSA started requiring that the name you use when you buy an airline ticket match exactly your state-issued ID or passport. I understand the need for it, and I even have come to accept it. But because airlines haven't updated their databases in decades, their fields are limited by the number of characters in a name or in a collection of names (as in, First Middle Last), they only print the first name.
I don't go by my first name. I've never gone by my first name. Most of my friends don't even know what my first name is or even that I have a name other than Jeanne. And I'm not alone in this.
Because the TSA doesn't understand the difference between a name and an identity, and because airlines are clueless, here is how some famous people (who go by their middle name) would appear on their airline tickets:
Christopher Kutcher (Ashton Kutcher)
William Pitt (Brad Pitt)
Laura Witherspoon (Reese Witherspoon)
Hannah Fanning (Dakota Fanning)
John Ferrell (William Ferrell)
Marvin Simon (Neil Simon)
Walter Willis (Bruce Willis)
Robyn Fenty (Rhianna)
Henry Beatty (Warren Beatty)
Troyal Brooks (Garth Brooks)
Francis Fitzgerald (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Navarro Momaday (N. Scott Momaday)
Lafayette Hubbard (L. Ron Hubbard)
Lyman Baum (L. Frank Baum)
John Hoover (J. Edgar Hoover)
Manoj Shyamalan (M. Night Shyamalan)
James Quayle (Vice President J. Danforth Quayle)
Thomas Wilson (President Woodrow Wilson)
James McCartney (Paul McCartney)
Thomas Connery (Sean Connery)
William Maugham (Somerset Maugham)
My name is just a name, but it's also my identity, much like Paul McCartney or Woodrow Wilson is an identity. When a faceless government agency and a behemoth airline refuses to let me use MY identity, the name I choose, my LEGALLY GIVEN name, I feel like a vital part of me has been blacked out, redacted as if it's a danger to national security.
