Given Legal Name Question.

[Great_Dane 1]

Potentially complicated question. I'm in the process of the N400 application (filing online) and it asks me what my legal given name is as one of the very first questions. This has been a tricky one throughout my journey to become a permanent resident as my name has a foreign character in it. The form's explanation specifically says "as it appears on your birth certificate" but that is not possible as it contains a foreign character. The correct international equivalent is "oe" but USCIS has rejected this in the past, forcing my name on my GC to be with an o, as, according to the director of the USCIS office that I appealed to "we cannot put something that isn't explicitly on your birth certificate." To make it more complicated, my SS card has the spelling with "oe" because according to them, they *must* use the correct letter/symbol no matter what language it comes from, as they have to match your birth certificate exactly.

 

So now my question is, do I put "oe" and potentially run the risk of them being confused that it doesn't match my GC (since the GC is also supposed to match your birth certificate) or do I put a simple "o" as is reflective of my green card, but which might cause them to accuse me of lying if they match it up with my birth certificate and don't realize that this has already been settled by the USCIS once before? 

 

Also, apologies if there is a similar topic like this, but after searching I wasn't able to find one that was close enough.

[little immigrant 800]

I currently don't have a computer to test it but does the PDF let you enter the special character? Let's say your name is Björn. If it would let you type in the character I would do so. If not I would type it as Bjoern and put the name correctly under other names used. In my opinion oe is always the better variant than only o. 

[Brother Hesekiel 2,235]

Nothing complicated about it.
Let's say your real name is Jörg (which was my late brother's name). You could write it correctly as Joerg, but that would complicate things way to much, so you'd write Jorg, the same way you'd write Goteborg instead of Goeteborg for Göteborg.

Your current legal name in the name of the USCIS is the name on your Green Card, unless you've changed it since the card was issued.

 

Now . . . since a name change is built into the N-400, you'll choose your new name, the name you'll be "reborn" with as an American on that form.  A name change can be a change of just one letter, a change of your first name, your last name, all the way to a complete change to a Rothschild or Kennedy. You can't become the Artist formally known as Prince, but short of that, you can pretty much choose whatever rocks your boat. When I naturalized, I chose a name that sounded more Americanized, so that nobody could identify me as an immigrant based on my name alone.

None  of that has any impact on your Danish name, so you'll be have two passports with two different names (identities), perfectly legal.

I have three, which is a lot of fun!

Edited February 2, 2018 by Brother Hesekiel

[Amy and Kristian 0]

I don't know if it makes a difference, but you can type the Danish ø and other letters by holding the alt key and typing certain numbers on the key pad. For example, hold the alt key and enter 0248, and that will give you the Danish ø. See attached.