Help Me Hank: Help Me Hank! Married Name License

December 31 2004: While millions were welcoming the new year, bride Caroline Juon was welcoming her new husband and her new name: Caroline Juon Wild.

Her marriage certificate has it right, without any hyphen.

Her health insurance card has it right, too.

Then Caroline Juon ‘no hyphen’ Wild went to the registry to get her new name driver’s license and got a surprise: a hyphen.

"And I thought, this is a typo. Let me go back and have it fixed," Juon Wild said.

So it seemed like one tap of the delete key could de-hyphen her name, but no.

"They told me they couldn't do anything about it," Juon Wild said.

Now, nothing against her adorable new husband.

"I love my husband and I think his family is great, but I need to have my last name be independent of his," Juon Wild said.

Besides, she explains, Juon is her ancestral name. It’s more than 2,000 years old.

"Being a family of only two daughters and I’m the eldest, I would like very much to carry it on," Juon Wild said.

But the registry was resolute. She could have Juon as her middle name, Juon-Wild or Jounwild, one word. End of choices.

She asked her new husband if he had any advice, he said, I do.

"He suggested I contact you and so the very next day I got on email and wrote you," Juon Wild said.

We headed for the registry. This sounded so easy. Would they force pesky punctuation on Courtney Cox Arquette, Eleanor Holmes Norton, or Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Well, yes they would. Their computer just can't handle a space.

"We'd love to give customers that option. Our system just currently does not allow it from the technical perspective," Registry of Motor Vehicles Deputy Registrat Erin Deveney said.

They demonstrated how their software, set up in the Reagan era, isn't set up for 21st century requests.

And you can't fool the computer by putting an underscore instead of a space.

So we had to give the new bride a bummer of a wedding present. Help Me Hank is helpless here. Juon Wild had just one request.

"I would ask that the registry update their computer program," Juon Wild said.

And the registry said yes, eventually.

"Please be patient and our new system will accommodate you," Deveney said.

If you're asking when, so did I, the registry told me they're hoping for an update within three years.

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