The sad love story of a man named 'AHH'

A Sydney man known only as "AHH" after changing his name three times has been banned from changing his name again and faces losing his wife-to-be as a result. In a bizarre case, AHH changed his name three times in as many years, from Hormis Daniel to Thomas Daniels in 1999, then to Tony Adam in 2000 and to AHH in 2001. He told the Australian Administrative Decisions Tribunal he did so "because of constant hounding and harassment from my ex-partner".

But now he says he has been shamed by his family for being single and has had a marriage arranged for him in his homeland of Iraq. The only catch is his family over there thinks his name is still Hormis Daniel and have no idea he changed it - or that it was an ex-partner who made him do so. "For me to return to Irak (sic) to marry this person under another name which is not what people know me by will cause a lot of anxiety and heartache to my immediate family," he told the tribunal.



"Not to mention the gossiping that people will engage in not knowing the full facts - 'Such and such is here but with another name. What is going on, why is he doing that?'" AHH said he had no doubt the arranged marriage would work out and that his happiness depended on it. "I am determined that this arranged marriage will work and that my spouse to be and I will have many years of happiness in Sydney," he said. Furthermore, in many respects it is somewhat of an embarrassment for my family to have a son who remains single after a failed marriage.

"The family unit within Iraki society is very important and single persons are frowned upon in the internal climate owing to the political and religious upheaval." But tribunal judicial member Peter Molony rejected AHH's claim for an exemption to the "three strike" rule of name changes, upholding the original decision by the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. It is unclear whether "AHH" was an actual name the man chose or whether the tribunal has referred to him only by the initials of his new name in order to protect his fourth - and final - identity.