Nine Morrison can always count on the story of how she got her name to fill an awkward silence.
“My name is Nine, like the number, which is actually short for Loranine, which is actually Lorraine misspelled on my birth certificate,” Morrison, 34, captioned a TikTok video.
When Morrison was born in 1991, she says a medical records clerk accidentally typed her middle name as “Loranine” into the system, and the mistake stuck.
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Morrison discovered the error at age 16, right before taking her driver’s exam.
“I had never seen my birth certificate before and I remember looking at my mom and asking, 'Uh, did you know about this?' And she was like, ‘Yeah, but we didn’t think it was going to be a problem."
Laughing, Morrison recalls leaving the department of motor vehicles with Loranine printed on her license. Morrison is the third generation of misspelled middle names. Both her dad and grandfather have the name Kieth.”
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At the time, Morrison was known as ‘Wiffer’ among her family and friends, a nickname she had used since childhood. She preferred the "weird" nickname to her legal one, which she doesn't share publicly.
"I never identified with my first name. It was so basic," Morrison says. So, when she graduated from high school and began a cosmetology program, she reinvented herself using her middle name Loranine, which she then shortened to Nine.
"Loranine fell right into my lap. It was all I ever wanted — a name that stood out, a name that was unique," Morrison says. "Now no one ever forgets my name."
Morrison has not legally changed her name, valuing the anonymity it provides. Professionally, Morrison, a hair stylist-turned-business coach, is known as Nine.
"If you search my government name, you can't find me, I'm a ghost," Morrison explains. "Because it's so generic, there are a million of me out there!"
A mom of two in Savannah, Georgia, Morrison gave her daughters gender-neutral names like her own: Copeland and Sawyer. Morrison says she was influenced by “Freakonomics” authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s exploration of the concept that gender-neutral names might make people more hirable.
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