The US State Department has a manual for their employees who issue passports and similar documents. They have made it public:
https://fam.state.gov/fam/08fam/08fam040301.html#M403_1_5
This part of the manual covers minor name discrepancies, and what proof these employees must have in order to issue a passport (or similar document) with a name that isn't quite the same as some of the ID presented by the applicant.
The section "8 FAM 403.1-5(B) Name Suffixes" near the bottom indicates that the state department employee can add or remove suffixes (Jr., Sr., II, III, etc.) based on the applicant's preference, without the applicant submitting any ID exactly matches the version of the name the applicant wants on the passport. This is different from the other kinds of minor changes listed in the manual.
For example, Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. has a passport that is about to expire, and the name in it is "Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr." But he wants the new one to say "Gerry Rudolph Ford Jr." He can't just write that in line 1 of the application and show his old passport as ID. He'll also have to show some acceptable ID with the name "Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr.", like a driver license.
But Frank Jones III is getting his first passport, and has a birth certificate that says "Frank Jones III" and driver license that says the same thing. His grandfather died last week, so he now considers himself Frank Jones II. He goes to the post office that does passport applications near him, fills out the application "Frank Jones II", and that's what he gets on his passport, just because he said so. |
