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Since JD Vance<\/strong> was announced as Donald Trump<\/strong>\u2019s running mate earlier this month, America has been trying to separate the true weird things in his past<\/a> from the fake ones<\/a> and figure out the extent of his antipathy toward women\u2019s rights<\/a>. From the podcast appearance<\/a> where he got very specific about his hopes for a national abortion ban to his argument<\/a> that strong medical privacy regulations might make it hard for law enforcement to police abortion seekers, it has become clear that he takes quite a bit of interest in other people\u2019s periods. Still, it seems he has been less fastidious when it comes to his own. Punctuation-wise, that is. Though he published his 2016 memoir<\/a>, Hillbilly Elegy,<\/em> under the name \u201cJ.D. Vance,\u201d some social media users unearthed a Blogspot website<\/a> where a \u201cJD Hamel\u201d wrote about his time in the military and at Yale Law School.<\/p>\n That writer was a little more in touch with pop culture. He even expressed some affection for the 2004 Zach Braff<\/strong> film Garden State,<\/em> which centers on a handful of childless adults trying to make it in a tough world. \u201cI couldn\u2019t watch Garden State because New Jersey\u2019s landscape is so much like Ohio\u2019s, the music is so relevant to my life right now, and the story of a guy returning home, realizing that home isn\u2019t what it used to be, etc. made me want to tear up,\u201d he wrote in the run-up to an Iraq deployment. \u201cThe comment he makes about realizing that the place he grew up isn\u2019t really home anymore, and his theory that people settle down because when you lose your home you want to make a new one really resonates with me right now, and I\u2019m sure it does with some of you too.\u201d<\/p>\n This week, a spokesperson for Vance told the AP<\/a> that JD Hamel, the blogger, is in fact Vance. The confirmation came in an article tracking the changes that have been made to Vance\u2019s name since he was born on August 2, 1984. \u201cOver the course of his 39 years, Vance\u2019s first, middle and last names have all been altered in one way or another,\u201d the outlet notes, through divorce, adoption, and spelling changes.<\/p>\n Vance was born James Donald Bowman, after his biological father, Donald Bowman, who separated from Vance\u2019s mother Beverly<\/strong> when he was young. When Beverly later remarried, Vance was adopted by his stepfather and became James David Hamel; this is the name he kept through his early adulthood. He went by J.D., before and after the name change, but when he enlisted in the Marines, he was known officially as Corporal James D. Hamel. Then in 2013, around the time he was admitted to the bar, he opted to change his surname to Vance. In Hillbilly Elegy,<\/em> he notes that he chose the name in honor of Bonnie Blanton Vance, the grandmother who helped raise him. (In his recent campaign speeches, Vance has spoken fondly of his \u201cMamaw\u201d and her extensive arsenal<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The AP\u2019s recitation of the changes also solves one more remaining mystery about the potential vice president\u2019s name for the punctuation aware among us. For years, we have known him as \u201cJ.D. Vance,\u201d but more recently, he has reverted to \u201cJD,\u201d sans periods, on his Senate website and press releases. The campaign spokesperson confirmed that Vance prefers the streamlined version. So, no periods for JD.<\/p>\n The punctuation change comes around the same time as the airing of some of Vance\u2019s past opinions expressed privately. A former Yale Law classmate, Sofia Nelson,<\/strong> provided a series of email exchanges they had with Vance beginning about a decade ago to The New York Times<\/a>.<\/em> Nelson, who is transgender, maintained a friendship with Vance as his politics shifted from calling Trump a \u201cdisaster<\/a>\u201d to pro-Trump (\u201cIf he would just tone down the racism, I would literally be his biggest supporter,\u201d Vance wrote), and from relatively respectful of his friend\u2019s identity to someone who believes that \u201cthe left\u2019s cultural progressivism is making it harder for normal people to live their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike some of the previous changes to his name, which were the result of family circumstance and emotional resonance, this last one might be due to simplicity. Call it the Silicon Valley rebrand of an old-fashioned logo, a new JD for a new era.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n