Remnants of this common law doctrine exist today in the United States in the
Uniform Commercial Code. Name changes can mislead searchers of official records of titles or liens. Article 9 of the UCC states that a financing statement shall not
perfect a valid
security interest if a name change would be "seriously misleading.". A creditor may gain priority over other creditors in the event of a
bankruptcy by filing a financing statement. The financing statement contains information relevant to the secured transaction and puts other creditors on notice that the filer has a secured interest in the property. Should the filer use a debtor name that is substantially different from the debtor's actual name, the purpose of filing the financing statement is defeated. On the other hand, if there is a minor difference in spelling or an
idem sonans, the error is not fatal, but only if it is not seriously misleading. The actual search results may reveal a debtor with a similar name and address which would put the researcher on notice to investigate further, which is the purpose of the filing in the first place. The legal effect of an
idem sonans is that the minor name difference shall have no bearing on the priority of debtors. In the context of criminal law,
idem sonans is used to affirm criminal convictions when the defendant points to variances between the names of persons as spelled in the pleadings and the actual names of those persons as revealed by the evidence presented at trial. For example, in Texas, transposing the first and last names of the victim in a pleading is not
idem sonans, because the reversed name is not merely misspelled but has a different pronunciation from the correct name. There is some movement away from this doctrine under modern
New York common law, especially in
conveyancing. That means a
creditor filing a
judgment lien or a
title abstract company searching title to
real property by a
deed filed in an office of a
county clerk must search by exact name, and cannot rely on
idem sonans.
California is also showing movement away from this common law doctrine in the context of real property transfers. In 1988, the
Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District held that the doctrine still applies for the "purposes of identification", but refused to apply the doctrine to hold that an abstract of judgment with a misspelled name imparts
constructive notice of its contents. The
New Hampshire Supreme Court in 1994 took a stance on this doctrine and said "We concur with the court in
Orr that "the simple alternative is to require [attachment creditors] simply to spell the names of their ... debtors properly."" ==See also==