Senator JD Vance from Ohio, the Republican nominee for vice president, is not unique in using initials in his name, much like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

What many people don’t know is what the initials “JD” actually represent in JD Vance’s name.

In fact, Vance has been officially known by three different names throughout his life: James Donald Bowman, James David Hamel, and James David Vance.

He was born as James Donald Bowman on August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio, inheriting his middle and last names from his father, Donald Ray Bowman.

After his parents divorced, his mother, Beverly, married Robert Hamel, leading her to change her son’s name to James David Hamel when he was about six years old, as reported by the Associated Press. This name remained with him through high school, his service in the U.S. Marine Corps, his undergraduate studies at Ohio State, and even his time at Yale Law School.

In 2013, he took the step of changing his last name to honor his grandmother, Bonnie Blanton Vance (affectionately known as “Mamaw”). Later, in 2021, as he started his political career, he opted to drop the periods from his initials, which is reflected in his official U.S. Senate biography listing him simply as JD.

Victor Hagan is the Alabama Election Reporting Fellow for the YSL News Network. Reach him on X @TheVictorHagan.