New Jersey Suggests People Change Their Names To Fit With Antiquated Driver’s License System

The people of New Jersey represent just about every racial and ethnic group you could imagine, so not everyone is going to fit into the standard mold of first name/middle initial/last name. And even though state authorities are well aware of this fact, they would rather have drivers legally change their names than update the state’s outdated license database.

In spite of all the Mary Anns and Ann Maries in New Jersey, the MVC’s computers still haven’t figured out that some people have two parts to their first names. [...] The MVC database only allows for up to nine characters for a first name, so someone with my incredibly common first name of Christopher is shortened to “Christoph” [...] “If the planets all align, we’re hoping that by 2016 this should all be cleared up.”