Legal names, AKA "also known as" vs "was known as", etc.
nameless-in-seattle
other people use that name for you? Or does it also include any names
you might have used a long time ago, even if not in recent years?
In other words, does AKA mean "is also known as" or does it mean "is or
was also known as"?
This is for when a government agency asks you if you have any AKA names.
Or what if they word it, on an application form, "all other names used"?
It is reasonable to interpret that to mean "all other names being used"
because "all other names used" is ambiguous, because it uses implied
words, and could mean "all other names you have ever used" or "all other
names being used by you"?
And what about pen names, online handles, etc.? Can they be construed to
be AKA names? Or if an application form asks for "all other names you
have ever used", would that imply that those names were required?
Also, what is the legal definition of a "legal name" vs a nickname etc.?
Is it clearly defined such that there is no ambiguity about which names
are legal names?
Mike Jacobs
> If you have an AKA name, does that mean you use that name, and/or that
> other people use that name for you? Or does it also include any names
> you might have used a long time ago, even if not in recent years?
Yes, yes, and yes. All of the above. Another, single word (rather
than acronym) for that concept is "alias"
I'm assuming you're doing this to fill out an application for a
security clearance, or the like. If you were already a criminal
defendant, the government could not be asking yo this question - they
would have to find out on their own what other names pop up in their
database that are connected to you. You can't be forced to
incriminate yourself. But, when you're applying for a security
clearance, you have to VOLUNTARILY reveal all this stuff, AND swear
that it is true, under penalty of perjury. So, you better be
accurate and complete.
> In other words, does AKA mean "is also known as" or does it mean "is or
> was also known as"?
They want to know any names you have EVER gone by. Any other names
by which they might find you in some record or other. If you could
_avoid_ having to list your aliases simply by stopping use of them
before you fill out the form, that wouldn't do the investigators much
good, would it? So that can't be what they mean.
"Yeah, I usedta be known as "Bugsy," and Bugsy's got a rap sheet a
mile long, but ain't nobody called me Bugsy since, um, yesterday? So
I thought you didn't wanna know that." Yeah, right.
> This is for when a government agency asks you if you have any AKA names.
While I understand you may be honestly confused, you may also be
trying to "game" this question, and if so, you already know the answer
- if you've got something to hide, THEY WANT TO KNOW about it. So,
if in doubt, TELL THEM. Otherwise it will not go very well for you
when, eventually, they do find out, later, after giving you a security
clearance on the basis of a lie.
> Or what if they word it, on an application form, "all other names used"?
They want to know all aliases you have EVER used.
> It is reasonable to interpret that to mean "all other names being used"
No.
> because "all other names used" is ambiguous,
ALL language is ambiguous. But some interpretations are more
reasonable than others. Here, the reason that "all names you are
using _now_" is not reasonable is that, obviously, you are only using
_one_ name now, while you are filling out the form, even if someone
called you by a different name 2 minutes before you walked in the
door. Also, because the only _useful_ thing for them to ask, so they
can investigate your background, is, to reveal all names you have
_ever_ used.
> because it uses implied
> words, and could mean "all other names you have ever used" or "all other
> names being used by you"?
Why don't you just ask the person you are filling the form out for,
what they want, and see what they say? OTOH, if in doubt, put it
_in_.
> And what about pen names, online handles, etc.? Can they be construed to
> be AKA names?
Maybe. Good question. I would assume they want to know about those
names mainly to check on whether you have done anything embarrassing
or illegal using those names, if there is _any_ chance that could be
traced to you, or could be used against you. Pen names, yes. Online
handles, perhaps - although if you use a different one on each
different forum or members-only website you participate in, that could
get complicated. (Even if you try to use just _one_ handle for all
your postings or logins, you may find yourself at a site where
somebody else already has that handle in use, and you will have to
pick a different one. There may not be sufficient clarity here to
give a definitive answer, but, if it's a handle you have used
consistently and over a wide variety of Net presences, I would list
it.
> Or if an application form asks for "all other names you
> have ever used", would that imply that those names were required?
IMO you have to use common sense. Frex, if you were a nerd in high
school and all the jocks called you some unflattering nickname, but
_you_ didn't pick that name or ever ask to be called by that name, I
don't think you need to list it (OT - I'll bet the new Speaker's HS
classmates called him "Boner"). OTOH if it's a "street" name that
you commonly went by, in either the wet world or the cyber world,
then, list it.
> Also, what is the legal definition of a "legal name" vs a nickname etc.?
Your "legal name" is the full name (first, middle, last) that appears
on your birth certificate, unless you have legally changed it.
> Is it clearly defined such that there is no ambiguity about which names
> are legal names?
Nothing is ever completely absent of ambiguity, but it's pretty clear
that at any given moment, each person has only ONE "full legal name"
and everything else, e.g. nicknames, partial names, etc. are
"aliases." Frex, if your full name is Robert Joseph Smith, _that_ is
your "legal name," and your aliases may include "Bob," "Bobby," "Bobby
Joe," "Arjoe," "Bert," "Smittty," "Slim," etc. - whichever of those
you have ever been known by, or answered to. You don't have to list
"dirtbag" or "scumwad" or "maggot" just because someone once called
you that -- unless you adopted it as an alias and used it regularly.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal
matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a
private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
nos...@isp.com
> This is for when a government agency asks you if you have any
> AKA names. * * * [D]oes AKA mean "is also known as" or
> does it mean "is or was also known as"? Or what if they word
> it, on an application form, "all other names used"? It is
> reasonable to interpret that to mean "all other names being
> used" because "all other names used" is ambiguous, because
> it uses implied words, and could mean "all other names you have
> ever used" or "all other names being used by you"? * * *
For the purposes of the applicant you have in mind in particular your
queries in the form you state them prevent rather than enable answers
other than those suggested below because you:
Don't identify the local or state or federal agency you
have in mind;
Don't identify the nature and purpose of the application
other than to invite a reader to guess that it might be to request
some sort of government employment or financial emolument; and
Don't actually quote in full any of the questions of
concern to you as, instead, you provide only partial excerpts tainted,
however, by what appears to be your own hypothetical characterizations
and parsings but in a manner which, at best, and puzzlingly, suggests
a kind of combative yet unrealistically defensive "bass-ackwards"
approach which, if indulged in by the applicant, may prove worse than
unlikely to be helpful.
Your apparently mere excerpts from the agency's actual questions
indicate that the agency did not ask, as you first state above, "if
you have any AKA names" and, instead, and more simply while also
apparently broadly, asked in effect if not in these exact words:
First,
Whether the applicant is using so as to be in some way
known by a name other than and instead of or in addition to what s/he
first stated on the application; and
Whether or not s/he is doing so now, whether the applicant
ever previously used so as now to be or in the past to have been in
some way known by any other name instead of or in addition what s/he
first stated on the application; and
Whether the applicant is aware of any name in addition to
or otherwise different from what sh/e first stated on the application
by which others now refer or ever referred to him or her (i.e., by
which the applicant is or was known to others) even if it was others
and not the applicant himself or herself who first used such other
appellation; AND
Second,
To whatever if any extent "Yes" is the answer to all or any
part of the three immediately above questions, what each such other
name is.
It might be astounding if you were to claim that you do not know this
already. It nonetheless is at least possible and also might even be
the the fact that some or all the questions to which you refer may be
more narrowly focused than these alternatives although, for real world
purposes for the reasons summarized below, your, "Is it reasonable to
interpret . . .?" approach is severely problematic.
Also unless/until you report facts that would substantively address
all the above "Don't . . ."s in a manner that makes clear that there
are other or fewer purposes for the, Also-known-as? related
questions to which you refer, there now ordinarily is a presumption
(of which surely you also must be aware already?!) that the reasons
for such a question are essentially threefold:
To assist the governmental agency which poses such
questions to be able thoroughly to investigate and verify the
applicant's bona fides so that it informatively can decide whether or
not to provide whatever is the requested governmental benefit (hiring
the applicant as, e.g., an entry level janitor or clerical employee or
as a high-level discretion-exercising employee or contractor? awarding
a governmentally funded research grant? other?);
To facilitate the agency's ability to evaluate the
applicant's degree or not of veracity and honesty (possibly in part
because the agency already knows or realistically/easily could
independently learn the answers and compare them with the applicant's
questionnaire answers); and
If/when it becomes relevant to implement this alternative
(as, in the first instance, the agency in its discretion determines
what is/isn't relevant for this purpose), to provide for the agency a
rationale in futuro or retroactively to impose sanctions (which,
depending on the agency's and applicant's respective conduct, might
even include providing a basis for a later criminal investigation and
prosecution) if it determines the answers to be materially false or
inaccurate (as, also in the first instance, it or some related
governmental actor determines what is/isn't material for these
purposes) without it having to establish other sorts of misconduct
(e.g., "You were inaccurate and misleading!" or, "You deliberately
lied!" as distinguished and so seaprately from from a, "You performed
unsatisfactorily [re. matters unrelated to whether you did/didn't
answer the questionnaire truthfully]!" claim).
The first of basically two core problems with your, "Is it . . .
reasonable to interpret . . .?" approach is that in conceptual and
analytical terms, it is too incomplete for real world purposes because
you omit all references to law related process if there was later to
be a claim or controversy about the extent to which the applicant
did/didn't interpret and, in that connection, answer "reasonably". In
other words, you do not even attempt to (much less actually) answer
any of these sorts of questions:
Who would decide what is/isn't "reasonable"? How and with what
economic and other resources provided by who would the applicant
contest if the agency insists that it does not agree with what the
applicant argues is "reasonable"? E.g., if you refer to an employment
or contracting relationship entered into by the agency in reliance on
the applicant's answers and if the agency perhaps even peremptorily/
summarily terminates that relationship on the basis assertedly of
incomplete or otherwise inaccurate application answers, you don't say
from source the applicant would have the means to establish his or her
version of what is "reasonable" in such circumstances.
> And what about pen names, online handles, etc.? Can
> they be construed to be AKA names? Or if an
> application form asks for "all other names you have
> ever used", would that imply that those names were
> required?
Re. "pen names": If you asked him while interviewing David Cornwell
whether he has been also known by any other name and if he answered
only, "Yes - as 'David John Cornwell' and sometimes 'David John Moore
Cornwell' or the like," then presumably it would be fair for you to
conclude that a material omission makes that a substantially
unresponsive and also at least in effect (and probably intentionally)
deceptive answer in light of the name (which perhaps is the only name)
by which he almost certainly is known to you.*
---------------------------------
* Hint if needed: Answer for yourself as you easily can who
was the author of the best-selling novels, among many others,
"The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" and, "Tinker Tailor
Soldier Spy" and, most recently, "Our Kind Of Traitor" if
that author was not known to you by any of the "Cornwell"
related names until I posted this response to your m.l.m. query.
Likewise, you do not need input from m.l.m. respondents to be able
easily the answer this element of your question.
Re. "online handles": At least if confined solely to intellectualized
analysis, this of course could be something of a conundrum, maybe even
a paradox, insofar as one common purpose of such a "handle" is to
avoid being known (as a, if you will, full person) other than by that
sort of perhaps abstracted and fanciful appellation so as to try to
insure, e.g., that an evaluation of what is said including how it is
said under color of such a "handle" will be limited to the words used
and not influenced by you directly/personally knowing anything else
about the person including what name(s) the "handle" using person is
known by . . . .
. . . which, of course, brings one to the above noted second and
perhaps most basic infirmity with your approach as illustrated by your
posting/query:
Presumably you are not asking what you do solely for intellectually
analytical purposes. And as of course you do know -- indeed, as what
appears in large part to motivate your query -- answers to the
application's questions that the agency in question does not deem
responsive while also true can be or later become detrimental to the
applicant, perhaps severely so. However, besides you soliciting
opinions about what arguably is/isn't "reasonable" in this connection
but in a manner by which you choose not to provide essential
information needed for probably dependable such opinions, if the
applicant really does want to be reasonable but believes that s/he
does not yet know or understand how to achieve that end, it is at best
confounding that you have not said (or even indirectly indicated) that
the applicant has asked whatever is the agency in question for what
that agency believes would be reasonable interpretations of whatever
portions of the questionnaire that the applicant believes to be
ambiguous.
Granted, too, however, that it is at least possible that such an
inquiry could be itself potentially (or, maybe, immediately/actually)
self-prejudicial. ("Is this person so actually insecure that s/he
can't decide on his or her own what the answer shall be?!?!?" "Is
this person so careless that s/he hasn't seen and understood on his or
her own how the agency expects the questionnaire to be answered even
though that 'how, etc.' is explained in the questionnaire's
instructions or in some other related and easy to find document?"
etc.)
And it is also possible that, in light of the nature of the agency and
of the purposes of the application, some questions, maybe including
a/k/a-related ones, may be unreasonably intrusive on personal and
public-policy privacy preservation terms.
But reasonably evaluating these caveats also cannot be accomplished
without knowing the information referred to above that you've chosen
not to provide in your posting.
> Also, what is the legal definition of a "legal name"
> vs a nickname etc.? Is it clearly defined such that
> there is no ambiguity about which names are legal
> names?
There was a time -- perhaps until sometime begriming in the mid-1980s
-- when the term, "legal name" might have had a (more or less)
definable meaning and would have been whichever portions of these
alternatives most applied to the person in question:
- the name given him or her by the relevant parent(s) when
s/he was born and as it appears on the person's birth certificate (if
there was/is such) and by which the person later became known to
others; or
- another/different name the person when mentally and
age-appropriately competent to do so adopted and applied to himself or
herself by thereafter continually and exclusively using it as if it
was his or her (as you put it: "legal") name, providing that s/he did
not do so for the purposes of avoiding creditors or in a manner
otherwise intended to or which foreseeably would have the effect of
defrauding others or which would impinge on the proprietary rights of
others (e.g., that the budding/would-be comedian named 'John Doe' or,
for that matter, 'Jason Lenofsky' ought expect to encounter
difficulties, perhaps including a "cease & desist!" demand backed up
by an injunction -- i.e., a determination that his so this is not
"legal" -- if he adopted then billed himself by the name, "Jay Leno"
in his public performances).
These standards reflect the (now in this context still partly
important ) principle that one's "legal name" was at first in the
nation's history only then, later, largely a matter of state law
(although, even then, not always for all state law purposes) albeit
that, in the past, the federal government, too, (more or less) abided
by this common law approach.
Some states amplified the common law in this connecction by enacting
legislation that made available procedures to facilitate court ordered
changes of name, although most such statutes made clear or were
construed/applied by the courts in a manner such that they were deemed
to be cumulative of, i.e., not intended to supersede, the common law
dealing with human naming. So the also not by you provided answer to
the "where?" question re. the person of interest to you would be
necessary to know to be able to determine how these princples apply to
the person of interest to you. HOWEVER:
Since the increasing federal involvement with what previously were
entirely or mostly state law prerogatives and, especially, since the
enactmen of the precursors to the execrable "P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act"
especially at the urging of Pres. Clinton followed by that federal law
itself and related others especially with a vengeance during Bush and,
in some even worse ways, by Obama administrations, the role of the
federal government has made anything close to a, "One Size Fits All!"
(or, as you put it, "clearly defined . . . [without and] ambiguity")
answer inherently unreliable, other than that one's "legal name" is
the name which, in law related contexts, is treated as that by the
then interested parties.