Do you have three names? Not in New Jersey

Had Carole Goodman Bouchey not called to remind me that change in New Jersey happens at a glacial pace, I would have forgotten that when I renew my driver's license next month, I still won't have an ID that identifies me as me.

It's been nearly 10 years since I last wrote about the plight of drivers with three names, or just long names, folks who for decades were systematically mischaracterized by the New Jersey Division of Motor Vehicles. Since then, NJDMV rechristened itself NJMVC (New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission). But if your parents called you Christopher or Jacqueline, you still can't be yourself on a license because it won't recognize first names of more than nine letters.

Back then, I lamented the Garden State's inability (or unwillingness) to follow societal trends. So imagine my surprise to hear that Bouchey, a Mount Laurel retiree, was transformed into an illegal hyphenate by bureaucrats who didn't know what else to do with her.

"But that's not me!" she argued.

"Take it or leave it," replied a staffer at the licensing center.

Who we are has become a question of who the government says we are. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Corbett believes only those with proper IDs should be allowed to vote. At one time, the Garden State issued easily forged laminated licenses that recognized only 13 letters for a driver's entire name. The new high-tech licenses allow for a nine-letter first name and 17-letter surname, but has space for just a single middle initial —no exceptions.

Women bear the brunt of these bureaucratic quirks. Former DMV director Diane Legreide recalled one call from an immigrant furious at being reclassified. By shortening her Polish name, Legreide told me, "we made her into a man."

Bouchey, a former headhunter, has a birth certificate reading "Baby Epstein." Her given name is Gertrude Carole, but like many women of her generation, she flipped middle to first without incident in her teens.

Carole Epstein became Carole Goodman. She outlived her first husband, remarried, divorced, and then returned to being Carole Goodman. Given the potential for family friction, George Bouchey said he would understand if his new bride wanted to keep her name when they wed in 2000. She wouldn't hear of it.

Both the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Department of State recognized Carole Goodman Bouchey as the modern woman she'd become so late in life. This spring, she went to court in Burlington County to complete the process to ensure her identity was legally recorded correctly at all levels of government. Armed with a judge's order and all the required documents, Bouchey set off last week to renew her license and registration.

"The clerk comes back and says I could be Carole Goodman-Bouchey," she recalled. "I said: 'But that's not correct. That's illegal!"

Mike Horan, a pleasant MVC spokesman, is puzzled when I call to share Bouchey's conundrum.

"So they created a last name that is not a last name?" he asked. "They should have just used her last name and middle initial."

Horan, whose wife is similarly stymied by three names, said the confusion should be rectified entirely — hopefully —by 2014.

"When the Matrix system is completed, you can have 50 characters in the first and last name fields and 30 for a middle name," Horan explained, "so everything will match up properly."

Until she can get a proper driver's license, Bouchey will use her passport for travel and to vote.

The only upside of her obviously erroneous New Jersey ID?

"I got to keep my old picture," she told me, laughing. "It was better than the one they took."