How Can I Erase My Identity and Start Over?

Everyone dreams of snagging a fresh start at life. Whether you've thought of changing your dull given name, or just disappearing entirely, this HowStuffWorks podcast will tell you what it takes to erase your identity.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant. We're here for you.
How you doing, Chuck? I'm doing well, Josh. I'm doing
pretty good. To Chuck, I drank a vault on an
empty stomach. I'm about that. You cover off this microphone.

(00:22):
I'm ready to go. You got another one lined up?
I do? I do? This is my second one, right,
I don't even know what that is. I'm about to
pass out, actually, but I'll try to make it through. Yeah,
please don't. I can't carry this. So I've got a
great news item for you. Ready, Okay. So it turns
out the sovereign Nation of New Zealand actually enforces its
law that you can't give a child the name over

(00:43):
a hundred characters long, and you can't give a child
a name that could prove socially handicapping. You want to
you want to hear an example? Charles Manson, No, no, no,
And arguably I like it. I think it's very lilting
and sweet, but it's arguably worse than Charles Mason. There's
an a year old girl who was in the midst
of a custody battle with her parents, and the judge

(01:04):
found out what the girl's name was and how much
she hated it, and actually made her a temporary ward
of the Corps so she could legally change her name herself.
Tallula does the hula from Hawaii? I'm not kidding. Is
that two names? One name? No, that's her first name,
you know, it's it's separate words. Um, and I think

(01:27):
they actually even spelled it correctly, like the is not capitalized,
that kind of things. But I was reading this BBC
article on it, and um. They brought up some other
examples of names in New Zealand that some made it
through and some didn't. There are a couple bizarre ones
that made it through, like number sixteen bus Shelter bus shelter, Yes, um.

(01:49):
And another one that made it through is Midnight Chardonnay,
which I think Q Grant probably has designs on that
poor child. Yeah, I think it's no secret how that
child was conceived exactly. But are a few more, um
that didn't make it through, like Yeah, Detroit, sex fruit
and um the twins, Fish and Chips. Uh, the the

(02:11):
the the federal government or maybe even local government moved
to block those names. Really, but um, I'm curious though.
It is Charles W. Bryan. Is that the name your
parents gave you? Did you change it? No, Charles Wayne.
I was named after John Wayne, which is a true story,
Is that right? Yeah? I didn't know what the W
stands for. Yeah, I'm Wayne, now I do. Well, if

(02:31):
you have your original name, you know anything about this
kind of thing? Is this in your field of expertise? Perchance? Uh?
You know, my wife actually changed the spelling of her
first name, although not legally, but uh, well, she spells it,
you know, when she fills out her driver's license records
and on her bank account, it's all spelled the Emily
with an i e and not Emily with a y.
But she never legally got it changed. But it just

(02:54):
kind of goes to show how you can change these
official documents without really having the court say you can, yeah,
just by saying precedent right exactly. But there are legal
routes to do this kind of thing, right right, And
I think I know what you're getting to, yes, Chuck,
How could one erase their identity and start over. That's
a great question. Um. Unfortunately, I hate to spoil this
for the listeners, but there's really no way that you

(03:16):
can completely erase your identity, uh in this day and age, um,
at least in the United States without the government doing
it for you. Yeah. Technology has made it a lot
more difficult to commit just about any kind of crime. Huh. Yeah.
In the old days you could do there was one
thing called a paper trip, which is you could assume
the identity of like a dead infant and um, get

(03:38):
their records and claim their identity as your own. Yeah.
But yeah, you can't do that anymore though, because you
know computer records nowadays and everything it's it makes it
really difficult to completely erase your identity. So I guess
even if you do change your identity, there's still records
of your former identity linking the two together exactly. So

(04:00):
if you're on the run from somebody like you can
change your name uh pretty easily if you're if you
have special circumstances, you can change your Social Security number,
but you have to prove to the government that someone's
either been misusing yours and another reason you can change
your social uh is, if you're a victim of domestic
violence and you really need to, you know, go underground

(04:22):
where your ex husband or ex wife. I guess if
you know your victim of spousal abuse as a husband,
which is actually um not paid nearly enough attention to
husband abuse. I'm not kidding. It actually is a real problem.
Men don't feel uh the least bit confident in admitting
that they are abused by their wives. They're not gonna
tell you. It's out there, you know. Sure, well that's
a podcast for another day. Sure, well, let's do it.

(04:43):
We'll put it on a calendar. Agreed. So, uh, Like
I said, you can change your social for several reasons.
It needs to be approved. You can change your name.
It depends what state you live in, uh, for the
uh the process you go through, but it generally costs,
you know, fifty bucks or under. And a judge actually rules.
I thought that was interesting whether or not you can
change your name. Well, that's only if there's objections. Right, Well,

(05:05):
they make a ruling regardless and it's always yes unless
there's an objection. Okay, So you basically to change your name,
you have to advertise it in the in the legal
organ that usually the county newspaper. And this is for
the great state of Georgia that we leven. Ok Um,
So it does that for several weeks. And you know
if if somebody notices and they have an objection, they

(05:27):
can object. And I actually um know of an instance
where that happened. You remember Jeff Killooley, Oh who doesn't. Yeah,
so apparently kneecapping America's sweetheart, um is, he can get
you some really bad press in this country, right because
here he famously uh hit Nancy Kerrigan, ice skater, Nancy
Carrigan and the knees with a crow bar. Yeah on

(05:47):
on behalf he said, he claimed of his wife Tanya Harding,
who was in competition for Karagan for you know, America's sweetheart,
that kind of thing. Um. So after the whole thing
dies down. Um, A couple of years after Galilee petitions
to have his name changed to Jeff Stone. There were
plenty of Jeff Stones that for that lodged formal objections,

(06:09):
including oddly enough, I heard the guy who played Jeff
Stone the son on the Donna Reed television show from
the sixties. Isn't that weird? Yeah? So people do object,
but I think you have to be um a little
unsavory for somebody not want you to share their name.
And I would think Galilee would have changed his name

(06:31):
before that, just for the simple fact that his name
was Galule, right exactly. Yeah, that's just me. Yeah. So, um,
those you've you've given us a couple of good reasons.
Can you give us any famous cases of of people
changing their identities? I can, Well, let's hear it. Well,
there's a really recent one. Radovan credits Um the Serbian

(06:51):
leader from Bosnia Herzegovina. Right. Yeah, back in the Balkan Wars,
there's a lot of ethnic cleansing going on. Um and
Ratti was one of the ones who was committing genocide
against the Muslims in that area. Uh So the war's end, uh,
the u S indictes him for crimes against humanity, he

(07:11):
drops out. Apparently he was still something of a hero
to the Serbian population around there. He was hiding in
plain sight to an extent. He actually grew a beard
and became a an alternative health guru and was living
quite publicly in Belgrade. Finally, we get a very pro
pro American, pro West leader uh in in that area

(07:34):
and um like the next month ravages under arrest and
on trial. So war crimes is a pretty good reason
to change your identity as well. Yeah, I think, you know,
when I was researching this article, I found that a
lot of people that enquire about this on the internet,
you know, you can get certain websites will say they'll
change your name, but it's really just a big scam.
They'll give you a fake idea and or reuse a

(07:56):
bunch of the same records over and over. And it's
really for those of you out there that look and
these is just a big money rip off. That's one
of those things where if you want it done right,
you have to do it yourself, I would imagine. Yeah,
you know, especially if you're having trouble with your identity
through identity theft or whatever. But I guess if your
identity gets so ragged out, it doesn't matter who you
trust it to to change it for you. But I
wonder if the if the percentage of people changing their

(08:19):
identity is on the rise, what with identity theft just
exploding all over the place. Yeah, I think, I mean,
that's one of the problems that the Internet is identity theft,
and it's also one of the problems of people not
being able to change their identity because of the paper
trail via computer, So it's sort of a double edged sword.
So check you want to give our listeners the number

(08:40):
they can call if they're interested in changing their Social
Security number. Yeah, if you're a victim of spousal abuse
or um. If you're you know social Security number has
been tampered with, can call one eight hundred seven seven
to twelve thirteen to inquire to the s s A
about you know what you can do and for all
the great details you can read Chuck's our coal how
can I erase my identity? And start over on how

(09:03):
stuff works dot com and stick around to find out
what article makes Chuck think of Frankenstein. Right after this,
we're back. Thanks for hanging around. I don't blame you.
What article is it, Chuck? Well, it's sort of misleading.
It's not Frankenstein, the doctor who created the monster, but
it's the awesome seventies instrumental groovy song Frankenstein. D D dude,

(09:27):
ain't d we have to pay anybody? I don't think
so okay to anyone? It would be Johnny Winner because
that's his song. And uh, you can ask me why. Yeah,
this is kind of you. Not only did we start,
you misled me to mislead the readers. And now I'm
just as confused as ever. Why would that possibly remind
me of frankenst Like, what article are you talking about? Well,
because Johnny Winner famously is has albinism along with his brother,

(09:52):
fellow musician Edgar Winner Afar Winner Group, they're both albinos.
Currently it runs in the family. So the article how
albinism works is that's the one said you just sit
there and Frankenstein plays over and over in your head.
Every time you're in over and over, I get the
ear worm. Well that's fantastic, Chuck. So you can read
all about albionism and all sorts of other interesting articles
on how stuff works dot Com. Check it out for

(10:15):
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