Columbus, Ohio — When it comes to the Republican nominee for vice president JD Vance’s name, it’s complicated.
The Ohio senator introduced himself to the world in 2016 when he published his bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” under the name J.D. Vance — “like jay-dot-dee-dot,” he wrote, short for James David. In the book, he explained that it wasn’t the first time his name had been used. And it wouldn’t be the last.
Over the course of his 39 years, Vance’s first, middle and last names have all changed in one way or another. While Vance is introduced to voters across the country as Donald Trump’s new running mateHis name has been the source of both curiosity and questions — including why he no longer uses periods in “JD.”
He was born James Donald Bowman in Middletown, Ohio, on August 2, 1984; his middle and last names were the same as those of his biological father, Donald Bowman. His parents separated “around the time I started walking,” he writes. When he was about 6, his mother, Beverly, married for a third time. He was adopted by his new stepfather, Robert Hamel, and his mother named him James David Hamel.
When his mother removed Donald Bowman from her and her son’s lives, the adoption process also removed James Donald Bowman’s name from the public record. The only birth certificate for Vance on file with Ohio’s Office of Vital Statistics lists it as James David Hamel, according to information provided by the state.
Beverly kept the boy’s initials the same, since he was now universally known as “JD,” Vance explains in the book. However, he didn’t believe his mother’s story that he was now named after his uncle David. “Any old D name would do, as long as it wasn’t Donald,” he wrote.
Vance played James David “J.D.” Hamel for more than two decades. He graduated from Middletown High School under that name, served in Iraq as a U.S. Marine (officially Cpl. James D. Hamel), earned a degree in political science from Ohio State University, and blogged about his musings as a 26-year-old student at Yale Law School. Those facts are corroborated by documentation provided by those agencies upon request or otherwise publicly available, and were confirmed by campaign spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk.
But the situation continued to gnaw at him, especially after his mother and adoptive father divorced.
“I shared a name with no one I really cared about (which bothered me), and now that Bob is gone, explaining why I was called J.D. Hamel is going to take a few more awkward moments,” he writes in “Hillbilly Elegy.” “Yes, my legal father’s last name is Hamel. You haven’t met him because I don’t see him. No, I don’t know why I don’t see him. Of all the things I hated about growing up, nothing compares to the revolving door of father figures.”
So he decided to change his name again, to Vance – the surname of his beloved “Mamaw,” the grandmother who raised him.
It didn’t happen on his wedding day in 2014, as the book suggests, but in April 2013, when he was about to graduate from Yale, Van Kirk said. Taking the name of the woman who raised him before he died in 2005 felt right, as he put the struggles of his early life behind him and began this new phase.
“Throughout his tumultuous childhood, Mamaw — or Bonnie Blanton Vance — raised JD and was his north star,” Van Kirk said in a statement. “It just felt right for him to take Vance as his last name.”
Claiming the Vance name also served to more clearly connect J.D. to what he wrote was “hillbilly royalty” on his grandfather’s side of the family, not long before he was set to release a book giving his take on hillbilly culture. A distant cousin of his “Papaw,” also named James Vance, married into the McCoy-hating Hatfield family and committed a murder that “set in motion one of the most famous family feuds in American history,” Vance wrote in his book.
Vance achieved a kind of clean slate with his new name, just as he was beginning his career as a lawyer and author. In addition to the name on his book, it’s the name he used to register for the bar, to get married, to enter the world of venture capital in Silicon Valley, and to become a father.
But there would be one more name change.
When Vance leap into politics In July 2021, he had removed the periods from “JD.” He had used this abbreviation many times in his life.
When asked at the time by The Associated Press whether this was a formal change or merely a stylistic one, his campaign said it was how Vance wanted to be referred to in print. He has continued the usage as a U.S. senator, calling himself J.D. Vance on his official Senate website, in press releases, and in certain campaign and corporate filings.
The official name of the nominee today is James David Vance. The AP, whose industry-standard style guide advises that people generally be addressed by the name they prefer, honors his request to be called JD without periods.
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Rhonda Shafner, an Associated Press researcher in New York, contributed to this report.
