Personal Numbers As Names

Changing your name is really annoying, at least in the UK, as you generally have to go around every official body and tell them all you've done it, which depending on what you've changed it to can take quite a bit of bravado and brazenness. Presumably some countries have different systems where there's a central registry, but this arrangement, inconvenient though it be, is still preferable to that. SInce all your qualifications, bank accounts, legal documents, loyalty cards, whatever, used the previous name, it's a bit of a faff.

Generally people change their names to escape persecution, to lay themselves open to persecution by a specific person (i.e. marriage), to adopt a stage name or because they dislike their previous names. They are less likely to form such attachments to a number. They are in fact allocated various such numbers in their lives, e.g. by the NHS or Nationall Insurance numbers, and these numbers do not have the annoyance factor that Issachar Necessary or Ben Dover have experienced (well, not Isaachar because he deliberately chose that name but apparently he's really annoying anyway), but they could still to some extent be chosen by parents if they really wanted.

So the idea is, have no official names at all, just numbers which, unlike the names, are unchangeable and follow you around from cradle to grave, on your birth certificate, qualifications, title deeds, bank cards, whatever. Call yourself what you like, don't use the number in everyday life, just when you, say, write a cheque or file a tax return, and nobody will ever be saddled with a stupid or hateful name again. Avoid numbers which trigger weirdness in people like "666" or "13", but other than that, just allocate them randomly but let parents choose numbers if they want, provided they're unique. Clearly there would be a risk of identity theft and fraud, but probably less so than at present because they'd be less memorable to others than names.