A New Handle on Life : From John Brown to Zenith Ray Blitz, They’re Game to Change Their Names for Any Number of Reasons

They all hated their names.

Georgia Ricotta’s gripe was having a cheese for a surname. “I am tired of being referred to as a cheese,” she succinctly wrote the court.

Clifford Morong’s peeve was a matter of image. “I dislike Morong,” the aspiring businessman scrawled, “as it is often misspelled Moron.”

Toddler Daisy Povieng’s problem was a brother named Donald. The 2-year-old’s mother said that when she named her children, she failed to realize “that in American culture these names are associated with Daisy and Donald Duck.”

And so, along with thousands of others in Los Angeles County each year, they asked to become someone else--by legally changing their names.

The name-change process is one of the most routine forms of business conducted through the Los Angeles Superior Court system; the sprawling downtown County Courthouse and the dozen outlying branch courts all process the applications. Although no records are kept on the number of name changes granted countywide, about 30 are allowed each week in the downtown courthouse alone.

For a fee of $108 plus the cost of a legal advertisement, almost anyone over the age of 18 can have his or her name altered, virtually no questions asked. The process is so simple, few of the petitioners need lawyers to get the job done.

‘We Get Some Wild Ones’

“We get some weird people in here. . . . We get some wild ones,” said Commissioner John Dickey, who signs off the identity changes in his downtown courtroom each Friday. “If they were trying to change some little girl’s name to Latrine, I think I would have to say something. . . . That hasn’t happened yet.”

For Georgia Ricotta, the name of choice was Anna Novelli.

“My other name, I did not like. . . . It was kind of a hick name,” said the 18-year-old Novelli, a self-described punk rocker. “With my look and stuff, it didn’t fit me. It was a stupid name. Oh my God, what a name!”

Her friends, the Montebello teen-ager explained, nicknamed her Anna. “I picked my last name from a TV series,” Novelli added, giggling. “I wanted a good Italian last name.”

USC student Morong came up with the name Cliff Michaels after thumbing through the white pages.

“I feel the best product I can market is myself,” he proudly explained. “It became a bit aggravating to give people a name they couldn’t hear and they sure couldn’t spell the first time. . . . Michaels is easier to hear, to spell, to remember.”

And for little Daisy Povieng, a new first name was enough to blunt further comparisons with a Disney character. As names go, Diana is anything but duck-like.

Sometimes humorous, occasionally frivolous and almost always fervently personal, the reasons for changing names are as varied as the name-changers themselves.

Young, old, foreign born and home-grown, the petitioners cite religious reasons and show business reasons. Some change names after sex changes, others after changes in marital status. Some are saying no to the names of natural parents. Others are saying yes.

‘Embarrassment and Confusion’

And sometimes people simply don’t like their names.

Tired of being branded a dull -man, Martha Dulman becomes Hillory H. Weigh. The Ninfos, Christian and Paul, become the Ninos, ending their “embarrassment and confusion.” And Clyde Hirakawa becomes Corey Hirakawa, “a more socially acceptable name.”

Some go from simple names to tongue-torturing polysyllabic names. Others do it in reverse.

Iranian-born Esmaeli Sabaghi Khiyabani, concluding that his birth name was too long and difficult to pronounce, opted for simplicity. The Glendale man’s choice? Oliver Twist.

For the Mongkonsiriwatanas, Wittaya and Chuchai, the idea was “nice, short names.” They got them. Witt and Gibb McDee.

The Shokoofeh family--Massoud and Mahmood--decided on Blake. William Blake and Matthew Blake.

In contrast, bookkeeper John Brown favored anything out of the ordinary and asked to be renamed Adam John Langford.

“I didn’t like it from when I was a kid,” Langford, 25, said. “I had changed schools seven times and as soon as they took the roll call each time, I was already the brunt of jokes--like ‘John Brown’s body likes a-molding in the grave.’ I can recite several more.”

Searching for John Brown

His woes grew, Langford said, when he reached adulthood and the bill collectors started calling, searching for any and every delinquent John Brown. “I kept being called and told I was five months behind on my Plymouth,” Langford said with a laugh. “I drove a Ford.”

The decision to abandon the old was easier for Langford than choosing the new.

“I had always liked the name Adam and I kept John as my middle name,” he said. But, for Langford, “would you believe I scanned the entire phone book?

“I wanted a name that wasn’t popular and had more than one syllable. There were only three Langfords in the entire phone book. I have no regrets whatsoever. . . . Do you know there are four pages of Browns in the book?”

For Langford and the others, the process of changing names takes two to three months. There are duplicate and triplicate forms to be filled out and notices run in newspapers. Finally, there is the moment in court.

“Most of these people are coming into the courthouse for the very first time,” explained court clerk Jackie Hyde, who processes the petitions in Dickey’s court each Friday morning.

‘Make Life Easier’

Regardless of their reasons, she said, the bottom line for most “is just to make life easier. That’s really it. . . . We don’t have our hardened criminals coming into this courtroom. These people are nice and it’s easy to be nice to them.”

More like a high school commencement than a judicial proceeding, the mood in name-change court is cheery.

Once a flurry of last-minute paper work is completed, Dickey signs the legal decrees and a smiling Hyde delivers them. Announcing the new names one by one, she admonishes everyone to “remember what you changed it to!” As they collect their certificates, each name-changer is greeted with a handshake and applause.

On one recent Friday, Hyde interrupted her roll call by pointing out a favorite.

“This is one I love ,” she gushed, introducing Michael Johnson by his new name. Why Portside I.M.F. Starboardside? “I want to change my name,” is all he told the court.

Outside of the courtroom, Hyde admitted that Starboardside does not get her vote for the most unusual.

“That was Zenith Ray Blitz,” she said, without hesitation. “I’ll never forget it. I asked him about it and he said, ‘Well, you see Zenith everywhere.’ I think he was in show business.”

Offbeat or not, just about any name is legally acceptable as long as it is not a numeral.

Many of the changes, in fact, can be made without a trip to court. Each year, thousands of Californians assume new names by virtue of marriage or by adopting that of a stepparent or guardian. Some simply start using an alternate name.

“This is perfectly legal as long as you don’t do it for the purpose of defrauding,” Dickey said. “If I start going around as John D. Rockefeller, you might say I had ulterior motives . . . or if you’re trying to change your name to avoid a creditor, that would not be kosher.”

But having the court’s stamp of approval apparently makes many name-changers more comfortable.

Often, the stories behind the requests are “really kind of heartwarming,” Dickey said. “Some of them just get to you. You have a child who is really emotionally charged . . . and wants the name of a stepparent who has been the one real parent.”

Others are angry. “A parent may want to change a child’s name maliciously, just to cut off the other parent,” the commissioner said.

Right to Say No

Although Dickey has the right to say no to a request, it is an option he has yet to use.

“No, I don’t intrude,” he said. What Dickey will do on occasion, however, is attempt to talk someone out of a name. A case in point was the man who would be Mayhem.

“I said to him, ‘Do you know what mayhem means?’ ” Dickey recalled. “So I got out the Penal Code and read it to him. His eyes lit up.

“I said, ‘Can you imagine having the name rape? The name burglary? The name arson?’ He seemed more and more fascinated. . . . I suggested other names, like Mayhew. But I could see it was going the wrong way.”

Apparently, however, Dickey’s argument worked. The man went home without a new name, only to return a few weeks later, with a different selection. What was it? Nobody can remember.

Change of Heart

Unfortunately, sometimes the change of heart comes after the change of name.

Such was the case of the Bradley family--father Gene Song, mother Kyong Suk and children Karolyn and Sharon.

After changing their surname from Kok to Bradley, the family wrote the court, “petitioners have found it very inconvenient to use . . . in their social affairs.” Old friends and family found the new name difficult, the Bradleys explained. And so the Koks who became the Bradleys became the Koks again.

Occasionally the changes may reflect shifts in fashion. Just a few months back, a rash of petitions came in from young men named Michael Jackson.

“I had a whole batch in a relatively short period of time,” Dickey said. “I began to think, ‘Here’s another. Here’s another. Here’s another.’ They all wanted to change their names away from Michael Jackson.”

Hitches Exist

Even when the new names are kept, the transitions are not without hitches.

Adam Langford still catches himself saying “John” when he talks to himself.