Woman With 36-Character Last Name Wins Fight With Hawaii

You will never, ever, ever see Janice "Lokelani" Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele's last name in lights or a headline, but the Hawaii woman can now at least see her hefty surname in its entirety on her driver's license. As the AP reports, Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele (try writing that without the crutch of copy-and-paste, just try it) has won her fight to get Hawaii to expand the number of characters that can appear on state-issued IDs; the previous limit of 35 chopped off the last letter of Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele's surname (which consists of 35 letters and an okina, a mark used in the Hawaiian alphabet) and left out her first name altogether, leading a cop to give her a hard time about it at a traffic stop earlier this year.

Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele, who got her name from her Hawaiian husband (who got it from a dream his grandfather had), lobbied the state for a change, and Hawaii will now allow 40 characters for last names, 40 for first, and 35 for middle. Next up for Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele: the Social Security Administration, which only allows a paltry 52 characters for first, middle, and last names. (More Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele stories.)