Only two things can reasonably be said to distinguish a “real” name: whether it’s the name you use, and whether it’s been signed off on by a recognized agency. When people contradict a name you’ve chosen – when they tell you that the name you go by is “not your real name” – they mean that your name is not “approved”, and that your identity doesn’t pass external muster. That doesn’t only happen on Facebook. Last Friday, the Texas Observer reported that a woman who moved to Houston with her wife was denied a driver’s license because the Texas Department of Public Safety won’t recognize her married name. Even after Connie Wilson showed her Social Security card, California license, and financial and medical records – all sporting her legal name – a DPS employee insisted that only her maiden name was “real”. “She told me I would never get a license with my current name, that the name doesn’t belong to me”, Wilson told the Observer. People will find a way to undermine identities they don’t approve of, and there will always be ways to write them off as insufficiently authoritative, “made up” or “fake”. It’s not about bad behavior, or even about official sign-off. It’s just about making yourself the arbiter of someone else’s self