Part 3 -- The name game

For better or for worse, I am one of tens of millions of Americans who
went through life not using the first name listed on my birth
certificate. This was very common in past generations he people
named William or Richard typically lived their lives as Bill and Dick
(note that the first letters do not match). Others used more closely
associated names like Chuck (Charles), Tom (Thomas), Cal (Clarence),
Jimmy (James), etc. Others used nicknames that bore no resemblance to
their given names. That's how they were known, and who they "were."

In those cases, and in mine, the name used on past drivers licenses,
credit cards, and numerous other documents was quite different than
the "real" name. In the course of making hotel reservations, buying
airline tickets, etc. the name given was the name on the credit card
used for the booking (a requirement in most cases because they will
only send the tickets to the person who paid for the ticket).

However, the US government requires original or certified copies of
birth certificates for the issuance of passports, and those bore the
birth name. At some point in the evolution of computer databases a
problem developed: a government computer search for a guy who used the
name of, say, Bill Clinton to buy an airline ticket turned up no match
because William was the name on his passport and birth certificate.

Now, for people whose actually use their birth given names throughout
life, there is no problem here. Everything matches and the government
and its computers are happy. Or for those who buy tickets in their
passport names, there is no problem -- the necessary documents match.
But in my case, they didn't match. This was further complicated by the
fact that I had used several alternate nicknames as well as initials
throughout life, and none of those matched my *legal* name.

This situation had not presented a problem for me in the past because
most foreign immigration officials were savvy enough to know that C.,
Caveat, and Cav probably referred to the same person. But writing
regulations on the subject to cover all the possible alternate names
of travelers is obviously impossible, so discretion was allowed for
immigration officials to decide each individual case, and different
officials interpreted these loose rules differently. This also allowed
selective enforcement, which invites problems.

For US officialdom, the rules are designed to be precise and not allow
for ad hoc enforcement: there is only *one* answer. Asking different
officials is not supposed to yield different answers. This is good in
the sense that if you want an answer to a question, you will only get
THE answer, and can plan accordingly. It also limits flexibility by
design. Thus you get the "no exceptions" answer regularly.

One very important lesson that we had to learn on the just-completed
trip to South Africa is that their officials are more *flexible* on
these matters. Ask three different officials what the rule on a given
subject is and you are likely to get different answers. This may be
frustrating to the more anal Americans, but this situation has one
major plus: If you don't like the answer one person gives you, just
ignore it and ask someone else. Eventually you get the answer you
want. Worked for me.

But to get into this position one has to get around all the name traps
that lie along the path to South Africa. And there are many of those
to surmount before ever getting on that plane to your target
destination. On this trip I seem to have found them all...