Medicare has forced me and now Medicaid to use my mother's maiden name as part of my name when I never have in my life because my mother had my name on my Social Security card as "[My first name] [My middle (given) name] [Her original family name] [My dad's family name]." I wouldn't resent it quite so much if it didn't make it harder for me to spell my "last name" for doctors and phone systems--"now there's a space between the names!"--and if she hadn't become ever more aggressively nutbar in the last 15 or so years.

I never had an attachment to her original family name even when I'd believed her version of our life because I was ever aware that it was her father's name, and neither of us liked him.