Opinion ID: 852218
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Common Law of Names and Name Changes

Text: Appellants argue that the common law allows name changes by common usage and that inasmuch as the Code requires the full legal name but does not define this term, the Bureau does not have authority to require that records match. (Appellants' Br. at 15-16.) They conclude that the Bureau must therefore use their commonly-used names. This series of contentions finds some resonance in case law: [A] State agency has the undoubted right to adopt rules and regulations designed to enable it to perform its duties and to effectuate the purposes of the law under which it operates, when such authority is delegated to it by legislative enactment. See Dep't. of Ins. v. Golden Rule Ins., 639 N.E.2d 339, 341 (Ind.Ct. App.1994) (referring to administrative boards). An agency, however, may not by its rules and regulations add to or detract from the law as enacted, nor may it by rule extend its powers beyond those conferred upon it by law. Id. Any regulation that conflicts with statutory law is wholly invalid. Dep't of Pub. Welfare v. St. Joseph's Med. Ctr., 455 N.E.2d 981, 983 (Ind.Ct.App.1983). Lee Alan Bryant Health Care Facilities v. Hamilton, 788 N.E.2d 495, 500 (Ind.Ct. App.2003). Appellants maintain that the Bureau unlawfully imposed a new requirement not listed in Indiana Code §§ 9-24-11-5(a)(1) and 9-24-16-3(b)(1), by redefining full legal name. They argue that Indiana, following traditional common law, recognizes the name one commonly uses as one's legal name. Appellants essentially contend that in light of the absence of a stated definition, the statute incorporates the common law definition of a name. ( See Appellants' Br. at 14-19.) The Bureau responds that its statutory responsibilities include verifying cardholders' names and that at common law people may change their names but are not entitled to require any third party to recognize or sanction [common law] name changes. (Appellee's Br. at 17-18.) We therefore must consider how the common law treats names. The common law of England was derived from the universal usage and custom of the early English people, and is a system of jurisprudence founded upon principles of justice as it was conceived and administered by the English courts of law. Ketelson v. Stilz, 184 Ind. 702, 706, 111 N.E. 423, 424 (1916). From this common-law system, and from the usages, customs, and maxims upon which it is founded, innumerable rules and principles emanated, as the courts from time to time declared what they understood to be the correct law applicable to the matter before them, and such law was determined by a system of reasoning and of administering justice consistent with the universal usages, customs, and institutions of the English people. Id. at 706, 111 N.E. at 424-25. So it was with the common law of names. Before the Norman conquest, the inhabitants of the British Isles typically did not use surnames, let alone permanent names inherited from their fathers. G.S. Arnold, Personal Names, 15 Yale L.J. 227, 227 (1905-06); James C. Scott, John Tehranian, & Jeremy Mathias, The Production of Legal Identities Proper to States: The Case of the Permanent Family Surname, 44 Comp. Stud. Soc'y & Hist. 4, 11-14 (2002); Julia Shear Kushner, Comment, The Right to Control One's Name, 57 UCLA L.Rev. 313, 324-25 (2009). As Anglo-American societies grew more complex, producing more contact with government officials, larger populations, and new types of legal documents, the level of sophistication in the systems with which people identified ourselves also increased. See In re Reben, 342 A.2d 688, 690 (Me. 1975); Smith v. U.S. Casualty Co., 197 N.Y. 420, 90 N.E. 947, 948-50 (1910). Circumstances, necessity, and time produced a set of customary practices. Ellen Jean Dannin, Proposal for a Model Name Act, 10 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 153, 156-59 (1976-77). As courts faced various situations where a person's identity was in question, they declared what they understood to be the correct law, thus expanding the rules governing names in the common law. See id. Indeed, Indiana's early jurisprudence features several examples which demanded the application of these common law rules. For instance, in Choen v. State, 52 Ind. 347 (1876), a criminal defendant was convicted of the assault and battery of a victim the indictment identified as George W. Shott. On appeal the defendant argued that the evidence was insufficient because the proof showed that he had assaulted and beaten George Shott. Id. at 348. This Court, citing several consistent historical opinions, applied the established rule that the initial letter may be rejected as surplusage, and need not be proved. Id. Again, in Schofield v. Jennings, 68 Ind. 232 (1879), this Court faced a scenario in which a defendant sought to avoid paying a note because the middle initial of the payee was different than that on the deed which originally conveyed the land to the payee. Id. at 234. In that case, we said, The purpose of a name is to identify the person. By the common law, since the time of William the Norman, a full name consists of one christian or given name, and one surname or patronymic. The two, using the christian name first and the surname last, constitute the legal name of the person. Any one may have as many middle names or initials as are given to him, or as he chooses to take; they do not affect his legal name; and they may be inserted or not, in a deed or contract, without affecting its legal validity. When two or more persons have the same name, proof is allowed, aliunde, to identify which person is meant, in any given transaction. No person is bound to accept his patronymic as a surname, nor his christian name as a given name, though the custom to do so is almost universal amongst English-speaking people, who have inherited the common law. A person may be known by any name in which he may contract, and in such name he may sue and be sued, and by such name may be criminally punished; and when a person is known by several namesby one as well as anotherhe may contract in either, and sue and be sued by the one in which he contracts, and may be punished criminally by either. And names which sound alike are held, in law, to be the same, though they may be spelled by different letters. Id. at 234-35. Schofield is exemplary of the common law cases in which American courts have faced the question of which name identifies a person. See 65 C.J.S. Names §§ 1-14, 20, 30-35 (2010). They typically involve rather technical disputes about formalities like initials or suffixes rather than credible disputes over identity. See 57 Am.Jur.2d Name §§ 1-8, 16 (2001). Nevertheless, the universal usages, customs, and institutions of society reflected by these rulings include the ability to contract, sue, be sued, or be criminally prosecuted under any name the person may use. Schofield, 68 Ind. at 232; see Ketelson, 184 Ind. at 706, 111 N.E. at 425. It makes common sense that a contract entered under an assumed name obligates a person with just as much force as a contract entered under a name given at birth. In such cases, the law does not concern itself with the nature of the person's name. Instead, what matters is the correctness of the identity of the person asserting or defending against filed claims. As Juliet mused that Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title, courts in these cases do not concern themselves with the name each party uses, as long as there is no actual (i.e., non-technical or formal) dispute about their identities. Even where actual identity is in dispute, courts consider names only to the extent they are necessary to identify someone. 65 C.J.S. Names § 29 (Where identity is challenged on more than technical grounds, the parties must show that the person is or is not the same as the person alleged, and this becomes a part of a court's factual findings.). Through deciding many such cases, courts eventually produced the following rule: under common law, a person may lawfully change his or her name without resort to any legal proceedings where it does not interfere with the rights of others and is not done for a fraudulent purpose. 65 C.J.S. Names § 20; 57 Am.Jur.2d Name §§ 1-8, 16 (2001). A person effects a common-law change of name by usage or habit. 65 C.J.S. Names § 20. An individual's decision to use a name other than his or her birth name does not imply an intent to set aside his or her birth name or the identity associated with that name. Abdul-Jabbar v. General Motors Corp., 85 F.3d 407 (9th Cir.1996); 65 C.J.S. Names § 30 (There is a presumption that no one intends to part with the right to use his or her own name.); 65 C.J.S. Names § 34 (An intention of a person to part with the right to use his own name must be clearly shown.). The very nature of a common-law name change means it does not require a court's approval. Such a system includes both the advantages of great flexibility and the disadvantage of the difficulty in verifying a name change, especially when the change occurs outside the traditional times in life, such as adoption, marriage, or divorce. See Ind.Code § 16-37-2-13 (2008); Ind. Code § 16-37-2-15; Ind.Code § 31-19-11-4 (2008); Ind.Code § 31-15-2-18. [10] Before 1851, one could acquire official state recognition of a name change by an act of Indiana's legislature. Indiana's 1851 constitution expressly abolished that practice. Ind. Const. art. 4 § 22. See Donald F. Carmony, The Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1850-1851, 11-12, 50, (Bethany L. Natali & Elizabeth R. Osborn, eds.2009), (Master's Thesis, Indiana University 1931). Thus, in 1852 the legislature authorized courts to effect a change of name, providing a new procedure for an orderly record of the change of name in order to avoid future confusion. 2 R.S. 1852, Ch. VII. §§ I-V (Gavin and Hord, eds., 1862 ed.). All states have enacted similar statutes, and all but two have concluded that they do not abrogate but instead supplement the common law. [11] We addressed the question of whether Indiana's statute abrogated the common law in In re Hauptly, 262 Ind. 150, 312 N.E.2d 857 (1974). In that case, a married woman who had adopted her husband's surname at marriage sought a court order restoring her maiden name. The trial court in which she filed her petition denied it, and she appealed. Because the statute did not require petitioners to establish any reason for a name change, we interpreted it to include only the common-law restriction against adopting a name for fraudulent purposes. Id., 262 Ind. at 152-53, 312 N.E.2d at 859-60; see Ind.Code § 34-28-2-1 (2008). We therefore concluded that it was an abuse of discretion for the court to deny the woman's petition absent evidence of fraud. Hauptly, 262 Ind. at 153, 312 N.E.2d at 860. [12] Certainly, Hauptly means that Indiana courts must grant a name change where no evidence of fraud exists, but this does not mean that the State must recognize an informal common-law name change. See id. at 152-53, 312 N.E.2d at 859. Only after a court grants this imprimatur to the name must a state agency recognize it. See Ind.Code § 34-28-2-5(a) (copy of a decree changing a name is sufficient evidence of that change in any court). Indeed, Justice Prentice dissented from Hauptly because he believed that the majority opinion for the first time required a court to grant legal sanction to any change of name allowed by the common law: There is no constitutional or inherent right to compel legal sanction of a change of name, notwithstanding the right at common law to assume a new name so long as it is not for a fraudulent or illegal purpose. The mere assumption of a different name, as opposed to legal sanction thereof, casts little if any burden upon others, because others are free to recognize it or not, as they wish. Hauptly, 262 Ind. at 156, 312 N.E.2d at 862 (Prentice, J., dissenting). We think it correct to say that under the common law only a statutorily authorized court order gives legal sanction to a name change. While the courts have a unique power to certify a name change, Hoosiers still may refer to themselves by any name they like. See id. at 152, 312 N.E.2d at 859 (majority opinion). They may not, however, demand that government agencies begin using their new names without a court order. This dual structure recognizes the reality that names serve multiple purposes, both private and public. Dannin, 10 U. Mich. J.L. Reform at 156, 160-70; Julia Shear Kushner, Comment, The Right to Control One's Name, 57 UCLA L.Rev. 313, 321. Among the private purposes are self-expression and identity, which are served by a person's ability to change one's name at will in social and informal settings. See Dannin, 10 U. Mich. J.L. Reform at 156, 160-70; Julia Shear Kushner, Comment, The Right to Control One's Name, 57 UCLA L.Rev. 313, 321. Among the public purposes are identification and communication, which are served by the State's ability to tether one's name to a fixed identifier. See Shear Kushner, 57 UCLA L.Rev. at 321. The modern tendency toward use of government-issued identification in both private and public settings may shrink the field governed by the common law, but both common law and statutory processes have long coexisted with respect to names, as they do in other fields of law. Statutes obliging citizens to engage in some formality when they invoke government processes by applying for benefits or identification cards neither obliterate common-law usage nor are they driven by them.