Learning how to drive and getting your driver’s license is a big rite of passage for teenagers, gaining both responsibility and freedom. Part of that process is getting a learner’s permit. One teen was stoked to do this but ran into an unexpected speed bump.
Gabrielle Mayor thought she had it all planned out until she got to the DMV with her mom and learned some interesting news. Her mom, tired from childbirth, had made a typo on her birth certificate and Social Security paperwork, listing her name as Babrielle instead.
Gabby knew something was wrong when the DMV employees started asking her a bunch of questions. They eventually told her that “we don't have a Gabrielle Mayor in the system. Immediately I'm thinking, 'Oh my god, did I do something wrong?'" she recalled. "Then they go, 'We do have a Babrielle though.' My name's Babrielle?" she responded. "How did this never come up? And more importantly, how was this never fixed?"
Turns out Gabby’s mom was "extremely out of it" when filling out the newborn paperwork and "barely even remembers" doing it. She fixed the mistake on her birth certificate but not her Social Security card. It took about two weeks to rectify the mistake, but Gabby finally got her permit.
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Gabby is now 24 years old and working in advertising. She was hesitant at first to tell her parents about her now-viral TikTok explaining the story. "I was honestly nervous because I don't want to make it seem like I'm exposing them to the world for being bad parents when they're obviously not," she said. Her parents were able to see the humor in the situation. "They were just cracking up," she continued. "They thought it was the funniest thing."
Gabby always wanted a cool, unique name. She just didn’t know she had it. "I wanted some standout name that nobody had," she mused. "It's just funny because this whole time I could have kept Babrielle and just been the most unique."