Why does it matter what letters appear in a signature?

Wait… I don’t understand your question. They make a fuss because you try to sign your formal name and you screw it up? What happens when you screw it up?

Anyway, its probably a problem because in case anyone challenges your signature it won’t compare right to your other signatures. It will look like a possible forgery.

Because for legal documents, you are supposed to sign your legal name not the one that you go by.

Legal name for legal documents. What is so hard about that concept?
Change your name legally if you can’t figure it out. My name is the same way in having a short version.
However, when I sign my signature, it is the full legal name.
No big!

Yes, they get very fussy when it comes to legal documents. The want the name you sign, your signature, to match the name on the papers.

Yes, I understand the “legal name for legal documents” principle. But what I’m asking is why for signatures in which the letters can be made out, this becomes vitally important, whereas in signatures where the letters are indistinguishable, no one cares.

Now that is an interesting question. I don’t believe there are any requirements in Dutch law for one’s signature.

I just tried to check and couldn’t find them. My wife signs with the name she uses and that differs from her given names. The main thing is, over in The Netherlands, that your signature is consistent and identical to the one you used in your passport.

Changing your signature is just not handy,but maybe from now, I will sign as Whitenoise in real life.

It is confusing. Many people advise to develop a signature and stick to it, but if your typical signature looks nothing like your full legal name, it isn’t going to be acceptable on legal documents. You really should sign everything with your legal name in my opinion to make life easier.

Just to pick a random example, I have no idea what this signature actually “says”. I could easily adopt it as my own, and no one would be the wiser. I could use it on all my legal docs from now on. But if I sign using my nickname, all hell breaks loose.

@thorninmud is asking how can they “legally” decipher his/her signature?

I agree that it seems arbitrary. My first name is “Peter”, but my signature looks like “Piti” because there are no loops to my “e’s” and the ‘r” is just a tail. My last name is even harder to decipher.

It seems that you are being penalized for having legible writing, @thorninmud. I guess the answer is to make your nickname signature illegible and use it all the time.

@thorninmud I use my middle initial when I typically sign, but on my passport I wrote it out in full, because it lists my full name. On other legal documents it just lists my middle initial. I purposely get my middle initial on documents, because that is how I typically sign. I could easily just list my first and last name and no one would think twice about it on most documents.

When I attempt to sign my given name, it lacks the fluidity of my usual signature, because I write it instead of signing it. As a way of authenticating my identity, that seems like a problem. The signature ends up looking like it was signed by someone who knows what my name is, but isn’t used to signing it. My usual signature would be much harder to falsify precisely because it has that spontaneous line that indicates that I do it all the time.

@thorninmud Maybe your should start signing your legal name all the time. Why fight city hall?

Although, as I think about, you would think what matters is it matches the signature on the ID you are presenting, license, passport, etc. But, again, I think those documents look for a match for it to be acceptible. At least in the US I think they do. It can be practically illegible, but the first letters of the names should seem accurate at minimum I am guessing. So, that would be the Bill/Willam problem.

@JLeslie The first letters do match, in my case. I could just do something like first letter, wavy line, first letter, wavy line, I guess. It just fascinates me that a signature like that would pass official muster, whereas my own wouldn’t.

@whitenoise ‘s comment about the Netherlands fits with my experience in France, where the typical signature is some little personal doodle, and nobody thinks anything of it.

I truly believe that pharmacies have a secret signature book of all the physicians that write scripts to their drugstore. How else could they decipher that scibble on the script pad?

Same applies to a lot of regular people on earth, especially nurses and the police. Their names are signed so many times a day, that they break-down on neatness.

At one time in my career, I was writing so many traffic tickets that i purchased a rubber signature stamp and almost wore it out. The judges nipped this in the bud, stating my signature had to be from me, not a rubber stamp of my signature. So much for that.

On very important papers, I use my full name as affixed to my birth certificate.

I just use my initials. Not the whole name.

you can honestly use anything. As long as it is reproducible and have an ability to validate it if need be. I guess its a matter of practice.

@john65pennington A whole lot of people in the US no longer have their birth certificate name.

@thorninmud I think it is more difficult now than before. Now when I fly I have to fly under my full name, that just started a year or two ago, even domestic flights, must match my ID. Identity theft is much more worrisome than 20 years ago.

I’ve actually been meaning to ask a similar question. My signature is super messy, and simply can’t be read. Even if you saw my signature and had to choose from five names, you couldn’t guess it was mine. You can make out the dot on the i and cross of the t, but that’s literally it. Will I get in trouble some day? I think about changing it to actually read my name, but then it wouldn’t match anything.

@blueiiznh Well, yeah, any old line will do, as long as that line doesn’t start looking like my nickname.

You should just modify you signature so noone can read it. Noone could ever tell what mine says. My name is Judith and I go by Judi. I don’t even remember which one I think I’m writing when I sign anymore. it is just a pretty curly doodle.

@Judi Has anyone ever insisted that you sign differently?

@thorninmud ; never. And I have been a party to a lot of real estate and banking transactions.

My signature doesn’t look like my real name, full written out, in the least.
Like @whitenoise stated before, in Holland anyway, it is only important that you always make the same one, in your passport, your bank cards, legal documents, etc.

My legal name is Nathan Brandon Kyle Schroeder, but my family, since I was a baby, has called me Kyle. When I am signing random, non-legal items, I use Kyle. However, whenever I sign a legal document, I need to use Nathan. So in reality, I have two separate signatures. I don’t see what the problem is with just using two signatures?

@thorninmud The signature for which you provided the link says “Herbel.” Some are impossible to read (I can think of a doctor or two), but some are not.

@Schroedes13 Although this question was sparked by the admittedly minor difficulties this has posed for me, I’m actually more interested in the rationale behind this kind of stringency. What does this requirement contribute to the legal process?

@Kayak8 I though the signature was “Altabef”. I know someone with that last name.

yeah, looks like an “f” at the end to me too

It contributed a sense of security to the legal system before we had the technology that we do today.That’s my opinion. Now we have retina/fingerprint scanning and I believe that written signatures will slowly fade out as a means for identification!