Problem at SS, name too long.

[Trillian42 6]

Hello all,

Earlier this morning we went to the court house, got married (YAY!) and went to the local social security office to get me a social security (I don't have one yet).

We decided to go to SS just after we got married, to avoid having to return there to do a name change.

Anyway, the lady said I could not get a SS card because my name (on the I-94 form) is too long. She said she needed to type exactly what is registered on immigration, but her system won't accept it cause it's too long.

She gave me one option: she would keep the documents and send a request to immigration to abbreviate my name, so that the next time, when she types, it would fit. She told me it would take 6 weeks (?!)

I decided to ask for my stuff back (passport and marriage license) and ask here what should I do. A month and a half sounds like a very long time to change a name...

Any help is very much appreciated!

[Cathi 5,747]

Same thing happened to my husband when he applied for his SS card, they had to send it to the main office in New York, his name was one letter too long. It took closer to 8 weeks.

[NikLR 13,227]

***moved to SSN forum from K1 process and procedures***

[del-11-03-13-3 11]

How many characters is your husband's name? Do they consider the full name or is there character limit for first name and another limit for last name? My fiancé's name is long and I'm wondering if we will have the same issue when we get the SSN in a couple of months.

[Trillian42 6]

I THINK it's 16 letter for first name, 16 for middle and 21 for last, based on this link https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0110205125

They will try to input as last name whatever is on the "given name" field of the I-94. My given name has 23 letters

Edited August 20, 2013 by Trillian42