Why JD Vance Changed His Name Multiple Times – The Story Behind It

The US Vice President took some time to settle into the name he uses, as it has been changed multiple times. One of the main reasons behind the changes is that his mother married different men.

It took decades of trauma, transformation, and tragedy before J.D. Vance — now the Vice President of the US — finally grew into the name America knows today. But behind those two letters lies a lifetime of confusion, abandonment, and painful reinvention.

Trump's Shocking Slip-up Hinted at a Lifetime of Identity Upheaval

The initials "J.D." now officially stand for "James David." But it wasn't always that simple. Back in May 2022, at a rally in Nebraska, then-former President Donald Trump stumbled publicly by mixing up J.D. with rival Ohio Senate hopeful Josh Mandel, blurting out the name "J.D. Mandel" in front of a stunned crowd.

At the time, it seemed like a harmless gaffe. However, for those who knew J.D.'s past, it was a slip with roots in a far deeper identity struggle, considering his history of name changes, shaped by a turbulent family background described in his 2016 memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy."

Born James Donald Bowman, the now-vice president carried the name of his biological father, Donald Bowman, his mother's second husband. But the stability of that name didn't last long.

After his parents' split when he was a toddler, by the time J.D. was six, his father had surrendered all parental rights. His mother had already remarried, this time to Bob Hamel, who adopted the boy and changed his name again, this time to James David Hamel.

His mother had tried to soften the blow by swapping "Donald" for "David," the name of her uncle, just to keep the nickname "J.D." alive. But even as a young child, the politician knew this was no act of affection — it was damage control.

"This seemed a bit of a stretch even when I was six," he wrote in his gut-wrenching memoir. "Any old D name would have done, so long as it wasn't Donald." When Bob eventually left, too, the chaos only intensified.

J.D. watched as his mother's last name changed with each marriage. The only true constants in his life were his maternal grandparents, known lovingly as Mamaw and Papaw Vance, names that would become his anchor.

At Yale Law School, he began confiding in friends about the "total stranger" listed as his father on his birth certificate. After graduating from law school, he married fellow Yale graduate Usha Chilukuri. The couple took the last name Vance, which, for him, finally matched the family he felt he truly belonged to.

From Verbal Abuse to Death Threats: The Nightmare Behind Closed Doors

In a 2017 interview, J.D. unflinchingly peeled back the curtain on his childhood — a house of horrors where violence, addiction, and fear ruled the day. He recalled being pushed, grabbed, screamed at, and worse.

The politician lived through parental separations, alcoholism, mental illness, divorce, and even suicide attempts. He was a child who had lived with an alcoholic or substance abuser, and someone who was depressed and had watched loved ones be physically abused, helpless to stop it.

His parents were born into poverty in rural Kentucky, where they later raised J.D. in Ohio. There, he fought for survival long before he ever entered politics. In his memoir and interviews, he described one particularly harrowing moment that seared itself into his soul, a moment of pure maternal rage that nearly turned deadly.

After a conversation upset her, his mother — deep in her addiction — began driving erratically, threatening to kill them both. "I'm just gonna crash this car and kill us both," she shouted. Terrified, the young boy flung himself from the moving vehicle and ran for help. That act of desperation may have saved his life.

Thankfully, J.D. wasn't alone in the storm. His older sister, Lindsay Ratliff, five years his senior, became a protector and confidante, doing what little she could to shield him from their mother's outbursts.

Asked later if she ever considered calling 911 after the speeding incident, Lindsay admitted that at the time, her only instinct was to call their grandmother, Bonnie Blanton, the woman they called Mamaw.

Bonnie, a tough-as-nails matriarch, took J.D. in and raised him with grit, love, and unshakable expectations. "She really just got me," the politician said of Mamaw. "She understood when I needed somebody to ride with me."

"She knew when I needed love and comfort. She knew when she needed to just be sympathetic. She was really smart." And Mamaw wasn't soft on discipline, either. She drilled into him three rules: get good grades, get a good job, and help her when needed. With her guidance, he broke free from the cycle that had consumed so many others in his family.

The world now knows J.D. as an author, a Marine Corps veteran, an Ohio State and Yale Law graduate, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, a CNN commentator from 2017 to 2018 — and now, Vice President of the US.

But Vance never forgot what he came from. After building a high-powered career, he returned to Ohio to fight the very forces — addiction, poverty, family breakdown — that had shaped his boyhood.

A Marriage Built on Faith – And Its Absence

In a rare moment of reflection during a November 2025 interview, J.D. Vance spoke candidly about his interfaith marriage to Usha. Their spiritual journey was anything but conventional. Usha, he shared, was raised in a Hindu household but not a deeply religious one. "Not a particularly religious family in either direction," he said.

"In fact, when I met my wife, we were both — I would consider myself an agnostic or an atheist, and that's what I think she would have considered herself as well." As the politician embraced Christianity later in life, the couple drew on deep communication and mutual respect to raise their children in harmony.

"She's my best friend," he said. "We talk to each other about this stuff. So, we decided to raise our kids Christian. Our two oldest kids go to a Christian school." And when their eight-year-old son celebrated his First Communion in 2025, it became a moment of shared pride and emotion.

"My 8-year-old was very proud of his First Communion," J.D. said with gratitude. For the politician, interfaith marriages — like his — are built on open hearts and honest conversations.

"Everybody has to have their own conversation when you're in a marriage," he said. "It's true for friends of mine who are in Protestant and Catholic marriages, friends of mine who are in atheist and Christian marriages. You've just got to talk to the person that God has put you with, and you've got to make those decisions as a family unit."

While Usha often attends church with her husband, the vice president admitted he hopes she may someday embrace his Christian faith more deeply. "Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved by in church? Yeah, I honestly do wish that," he said. "Because I believe in the Christian Gospel, and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way."

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text "help" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741, or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.