Citizenship application: Other names used- long name

[sidyerra]

Hello all,
I am preparing to apply for citizenship and I'm not sure how I should answer the question "Have you ever used any other name?"

I have a long name with three given names. Let's say my name is Marie Antoinette Regina Versailles. These are the other names that I have used at different points of my life:

• In official forms, I am referred to as Marie Antoinette Versailles or Marie Versailles, if my full name is not used.
• In my culture, the first word is commonly used in most people's name as some type of pre-first name. Expanding my example, members of my family are named Marie Therese, Marie Chantal, Marie Joseph etc.Therefore, I generally go by Antoinette Versailles professionally and in formal personal capacity.
• I am informally known as Toni to my coworkers, friends and such.
• More than 15 years ago, I lived in another region as a student where an alternate spelling of my name was used (sometimes with my middle name as my last name), let's say Antonia or Antonia Regina . I have some participation certificates that used this spelling but not my diploma.
• My diploma from this time instead has a truncated version of my last name- Marie Antoinette Regina V.

Since all my alternative names are essentially a variation of my full name, I feel that I don't need to answer yes to the question "have you ever used any other name?" Am I wrong in the assumption. Are there any disadvantages of listing all these variations

 

[Seym]

On case of doubt, feel free to list exhaustive information. At worst, it's useless to IRCC and changes absolutely nothing. So, sure, list the variations of your name if you want (without the informal Toni, that's not needed!)

 

[sodapop123]

These are all variations of the same name in my book, and not a 'name change / any other name' (outside of the different spelling itself in your 4th bullet point which I'm not 100 % sure about).

Lil Back story :

When i applied for my PR, i did a notarized affidavit called 'one and the same person' explaining the different variations of my name used at different stages in life on various educational, work experience & financial institution documents. This affidavit just stated it's all variations to be considered as the same person, but not to be considered a 'name change'.

I added this as a Letter of explanation in the attachments. But this was only because PR required a lot more educational documents etc. which actually had a variation of my full name printed on them.

However, coming to the citizenship application :

• I just got my citizenship and in my application it was not like PR. I didn't find the need to upload any such affidavit or explanation.
• I just answered 'No' to the "have you used any other name" question.
• The citizenship application itself didn't require me to upload any documents from that had a different variation of the name, so nothing of this sort was required to be explained in my case.
• The only documents i was required to upload were my PR card, Foreign passport & Drivers license which all had my full name including middle names.
• For language proof i uploaded my IELTS results, which had my first and last name, but no middle name - and that was perfectly fine (maybe since it was the same i had used when i applied for PR)
• I guess if you're using educational documents to demonstrate language skills - you might possibly need to explain the variation of name if that's the case.

TLDR : I would suggest filling out (but not submitting yet) the application, answering 'No' this question, then look back at all the documents you uploaded and then make the determination if an explanation for name variations is required in your case or not. Most likely those old documents won't be required / be relevant on this application form.


Hope this helps !