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It seems people are willing to change their names for any reason these days.
Nineteen-year-old North Carolina resident Jennifer Thornburg legally changed her name to Cutout Dissection.com, The Associated Press reported. Cutoutdissection.com is a real Web site protesting animal dissections in schools.
The woman did this to raise awareness of how many animals are killed each year for dissection. She now lives in Virginia and her license first reads Dissection.com as her last name and Cutout as her first.
Maybe Dissection.com should have pulled a Madonna and have only a first name. Or she could keep her original name and promote the Web site through word of mouth instead of literally being a walking, talking advertisement.
I guess our national motto can be used as a name also. Steve Kreuscher, a 57-year-old bus driver, legally changed his name to In God We Trust, the AP reported. The Zion, Ill., resident's new first name is In God and his new last name is We Trust. He said he did this because it symbolizes the help he received from God during the struggles he faced.
So now we can find the national motto on our currency and in Zion, Ill., driving people around for a living. That is fantastic.
Name changes are extremely expensive. They can be between $200 and $400, according to legal advisers at Nolo.com.
The Web site also lists some restrictions. One is you can't have a name that could be intentionally confusing. This would include having a punctuation mark or number as your name.
I would consider a URL to be intentionally confusing since Dissection.com said in an interview that she had to repeat her name several times when meeting people and had to explain what her name meant. The name also has a punctuation mark with ".com" in it. And she said it took her two tries at the DMV to get her license. The first try should have told her something.
I would also consider We Trust's name intentionally confusing. In God We Trust is his first and last name, but it looks like it could be a first and last name with two middle names. Or someone could think his name is Ingod Wetrust unless the person saw his license. I wonder how many atheists stopped riding his bus. I also wonder how many Christians got offended when he decided to use the Lord's name as part of his own.
If you have a political view to express, join an organization that supports what you believe. My father was a member of the National Rifle Association for many years and the cost for membership was $35 a year. He never once thought of changing his name to NRA to raise awareness of his views.
The same thing goes for a religious belief. The national motto can be carried with you in any form. It doesn't necessarily have to be your name to show symbolism. It could be handwritten and taped to the inside of the bus and still have the same meaning. It's a motto. It's eternal. It can't get shut down for financial problems as a Web site or transportation service could.
Legally changing your name means giving up the name you were given at birth. If you're really ready to give that up to express a belief, go ahead. Just make sure you really want that new name on your tombstone. If reality kicks you in the face and you want to switch back to your original name, you just wasted anywhere between $400 and $800. That money could have been put toward something more useful, say a good college education.
David Wangberg can be reached at dwangberg@theorion.com
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