No Last Name & Child Birth In USA

My son was born in Nov, 2015 in United states. And as per procedure, hospital was supposed to take care of filling for my son's SSN and birth certificate. While filling up the forms they wanted mother's first and last name and in my case I have only first name in my Indian Passport and FNU(First name) in my visa. Check the visa story here.

My name on Indian Passport: XYZ
My name on USA Visa: FNU XYZ

Birth certificate and passport are the documents which are going to be with my son for life long and by no means I wanted my name to be printed as FNU in my any of my son's document. It has several risks and pain associated to it as well:
1. While traveling to any other country other than USA, how am I gonna proof that I am the Mother of son, as my real name is XYZ but my son's passport and birth certificate will show FNU XYZ.
2. While getting admission to schools and colleges, there would be mother's name mismatch.
3. While making any future investment for the kid.
4. While buying any property or for any other legal formalities that require mother's name.
5. Not only this, US immigration check is so strict that when you leaves a country with a child (specially to Mexico), they check for proofs that the child belongs to you or not. Even if there is any mismatch in the last name of mother and child, you are in trouble. I got this information from internet.

So the bottom line is, I wanted my son's documents to not have FNU in mother's name.
We requested the same to the hospital staff but they said they can't leave the last name empty in the form. Also, they wanted us to show some document that shows my name as XYZ instead of FNU XYZ. Hospital records and insurance had my name as FNU XYZ.
But luckily my driver's license has my name as XYZ and last name is blank. Check out the DL story without last name.
So, finally hospital was ready to go with my name without last name.

Getting International Flight Ticket Without A Surname

Okay!

So you entered States and got DL done without the last name in Indian passport.

Now how about going out of the States?

Here is the thing, like US government, all other business operations in the US also demand you to have both first & last name. 

Yes, you guessed it right! Airlines do require 1st and last name on ticket which should eventually match your passport not visa and as you don't have a last name (or have a single name) on your passport, you again land into trouble. Gurrr....

 Although domestic travel in US will not trouble you as they won't necessarily ask for passport and you are good to go with your Id proof (e.g. DL, ITIN etc).

I booked 2 international tickets with 2 different airlines (British Airways & Emirates).
As usual, while booking online both airlines website asked for first & last name which should match the name on the passport.

Booking With Emirates
I called the customer care to check for this and they said I have to have a last name to book the ticket because their system would not allow them to proceed with blank last name. They were sorry and hung up. Now you can imagine the level of frustration I went through. I mean seriously? Firstly, you can't enter USA easily without a last name and now you can't leave this country. Not funny for someone who faced this name mess.
I decided to call them once again and viola this time some experienced guy picked up. He was able to go ahead with the booking form without last name (usually they are authorized to do so) and was able to generate the itinerary but the ticket was not confirmed unless we make payment and since this was an exception, their system couldn't handle it well


Booking with British Airways 

Getting USA Visa without Last Name
Entering States without last name
Getting Learner Driver's License
Getting Driver's License

Getting Driver's License # Surname (Second Name) Ado

Jul, 2013
After I got my learner driver's license, I tried booking an appointment for driver's test (for actual DL), trust me its really hard to get an appointment in any closer dates. I got a date after 3 months (Oct, 2014). Check out my Learner driver's license without last name story.

Oct, 2013
After such a long wait when I was at DMV office for the test, officials again got confused with my name and refused to take my test.
They said, it's an exceptional case and they need to verify my lawful presence from homeland security. And as they mentioned about verification, they did sent a letter to homeland security, to which I got a response after 2 weeks stating, "Your lawful presence is not verified". WHAT???

That was quite frustrating. We requested DMV officers to re-send the request to homeland security for verification. And luckily this time, I got a verification letter approving my lawful presence after 2 weeks.

Nov, 2013

By now, I had a verification letter from homeland security but I also got my visa renewed and it had altogether a different name again. MURPHY's law justified!! :( :(
Now in my renewed visa, my first name is "No Name Given" instead of "FNU". On querying on this with USCIS, I got a response that both of them means the same and USCIS database doesn't understand FNU. Fewww... is there anything more frustrating than loosing your own special name, given by your parent?
This is what happens when your systems are not synched well.

Dec, 2013

With this response, I again went to DMV office. But the problem was yet to come. They again denied to take my test and said the names are totally different on both of my documents i.e visa and learner license and they wanted to again verify my lawful presence with homeland security.

Jan, 2014

I tried contacting USCIS again but wait, this time I heard a different response from them. They said it's a mistake from their side and I need to raise a request to get it corrected. But I decided to call them again the next day and I was told that it's the same thing again... Gosh.. They were not at all cooperative.
Anyways, luckily I got a response from homeland security through mail, verifying my presence this time. I guess it's because their system understands that FNU and "No Name Given" are the same things.
I again booked an appointment for the test. I got a date for Mar, 2014.

Mar, 2014

And this time they did allowed me to go through driving test, which I off course cleared and I got the driver's license finally.

So folks, if you don't have a last name and you are planning to visit/enter Unites States pull up your socks and be prepared to go through many difficulties. You can't even book a flight ticket / travel within US through any airline if you don't have a last name. But FNU added to your name does allow you to do so. But when it comes to international travel (from US to any other country), you are in trouble again.
A better advice would be to get your name updated in your passport (add last name) before you leave your respective countries.

Getting Visa # Surname (Second Name) Ado

Applying For H4 Visa

I am here to share my story of entering in United States on H4 Visa and the complications I faced throughout the stay in absence of a surname.

Few months after I got married to a guy who is settled in USA, we started my H4 visa process in order to get me to USA as well. During the initial stage, I started with tons of paper work and form fillings which included getting a copy of all my IDs and certifications, filling up of DS-160 and getting signed letters ready from my husband's employer, as off course they were sponsoring my H4/dependent visa.

Some of the documents as I remember are:

Passport Original  (no copy)

DS-160 confirmation page

Appointment Letter (for visa interview)

My employer's docs (yes, I was working in India): Appointment letter

Resignation\NOC letter

Marriage certificate

Marriage photos

Wedding card

Educational documents

PAN Card

DL

ITR

Form 16

Salary Slips

And copy of some of my husband’s documents:

Passport - Front

Passport - Back

Visa

I-94

Salary Slips (for past few months)

Tax Documents (for past 2 months)

I-797 Petition papers

LCA

Educational Docs (to be on safer side, as you don’t want to get rejected simply because you couldn’t present certain documents asked by the visa interviewer)

While I was in the process of filling up DS-160, the form made it mandatory to print a second name without which I was not able to proceed. In order to get going, I had to enter a second name but I couldn’t just enter any second name as that would invite further problems as all of my other documents i.e. passport, DL, adhar card don’t have a surname. This delayed the whole process and after a lot of googling and checking with other consultants and my husband’s employer, we ended up with a work around.

I made my name as surname and in the place of first name I had put FNU (First Name Unknown).

E.g. On passport

First name: ABC

Last name: Blank

       On DS-160

First name: FNU

Last name: ABC

I did heard from some people about LNU which is Last Name Unknown, which works the same way, it’s just that instead of using your first name as surname, LNU is made surname and first name remains the same.

That way I was able to take the process further.

Once I was done with all the documentation, I got 2 appointments made by my husband’s employer for visa interview:

 1. Ofc Appointment

   It was scheduled at:

   

   S - 1 American Plaza, (Hotel Eros Managed by Hilton),

   International Trade Tower,

   Nehru Place, New Delhi, 110019

And this was a real quick one, they simply clicked a photograph for visa and took finger prints and checked my passport, appointment letter and DS-160 and called that a day.

2. Consular appointment

It was the real visa interview appointment and was scheduled at:

   U.S. Embassy Shantipath

   Chanakya Puri

   Delhi, 110021

All went well and the visa lady said, “You don’t seem to be a threat to our country & we are more than happy to welcome you to United Sates”.

In a week’s time, I received my stamped visa through post. It had my first name as FNU and last name as my actual “first name”. Feww, a lot of messing around with a name that has been given to me since birth. It’s quite confusing and off course irritating to be called as first name unknown. People actually pronounced it Fnu as if it’s a name and some of them asked it’s meaning, which surely tells even in USA people aren’t familiar with this FNU thing.

I wish I would have gone with LNU instead of FNU, at least I would have been called by my name instead of Fnu.

Entering USA # Surname (Second Name) Ado

Flying To USA

New Delhi à Heathrow à Dallas

On my arrival at Dallas International Airport, I had to go through immigration check and fill up I-94 which is not required these days as they do it electronically now, so no more paper work. Here I was in dilemma again as to what should I fill in last name. I decided to go as per my visa and that turned out be the correct way as once you enter states, all documents should be in synch with your visa as your passport is a foreign document to them. Although, that's another thing that wherever I showed my visa they did questioned about name mismatch in passport and visa but a little explanation almost solved the dispute every time. 
I successfully went through the immigration check with officials asking me couple of questions on FNU thing. 

Getting Learner Driver's License # Surname (Second Name) Ado

Here is my story of getting a learner driver's license.

Getting a driver's license was no easy after getting surname thing sorted out in visa. USA has a different system / database for visa and other identity documents (USCIS and Homeland security). That means even if I sorted out the surname issue with immigration, DMV still doesn't recognize FNU & LNU.

Jun, 2013
When I went to DMV office for a learner driver's license, officials were a lot confused with my name because they found out different names on my visa and passport (Passport didn't had surname unlike visa). After discussing amongst them for a while, they allowed me to go through the written test which was required to get a learner driver license. And i did cleared the test and got the learner license on spot (duplicate copy). And received the original one after 2 weeks.
But my name was interchanged now, 1st name became last name and vice versa. Neither did I nor the DMV officials noticed that the name was wrong again, mismatched with what was on the visa.
This is because, when I looked at my license I saw FNU XXXX (my name) and it seemed fine too me but actually DL represented name as LAST NAME, FIRST NAME. That meant it was interchanged.
But I was good to go with that and never faced any further trouble because of that as no one noticed that. I am surprised now, how could they miss that and make such a mistake?