His birth name wasn’t Gerald R. Ford

Most of you probably know that Jimmy Carter, the president who replaced Ford, was the first American president to use his nickname in an official capacity (according to Time), which allowed fellow Democrats Bill Clinton and Joe Biden to do the same in the years that followed. But because Gerald Ford wasn't his real name when he was born, Ford was noteworthy in his own right when it came to his name. So what was his real, legal name for the first 22 years of his life?

Ford gave birth to Leslie Lynch King Jr. on July 14, 1913 in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her son shortly after his parents, Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer King, got divorced. After they married the local paint salesman Gerald Rudolph Ford, they began referring to her son there as Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. However, his name wouldn't be formally changed until 1935. The younger Ford had a tight relationship with his stepfather despite learning at the age of 13 that he wasn't his biological father. When Ford was 17 years old, he happened to run across Leslie L. King in a Grand Rapids restaurant; he later spoke bitterly of the encounter (King had neglected to pay his court-ordered child support) and said he had never truly forgiven his father.