. >> guest: she was named stanley ann dunham initially her mother to the cut father's name was stanley dunham and he wanted a boy and got her and in her stanley. that was the sort of joking response over and over again when people would ask stanley? so there's a terrible burden to her. but it turns out as you point out she ditched the name quickly as she came of age and i will tell you about her last name in imminent this is the story told by president obama in dreams from my father the one that attributes it to stanley dunham, her father wanted a boy and getting stuck with a girl may not be entirely the full story. madeleine dunham, her mother come as a child growing up in small-town kansas during the depression began a devotee of devotee devi bettis -- bette davis and bette davis was a appeared in a movie directed by john huston and which she played a character named stanley timberlake, and after the baby was born that november she was going through an interesting change in her store of public image at that time. it was a rigid and period and women were being encouraged to go into th

she went from stanley ann, to ann dunham, to ann obama, to ann soetoro. then she stayed and kept the soetoro name even through her divorce in 1980. rather than abandon the name and go back to dunham or obama or whatever for some new name, she decided instead to modernize the spelling of soetoro, which was happening. she broke from the family by giving herself sutoro. which is what many japanese did, not the old traditional male japanese, but the at least likely to update. so he kept his name, but updated it, while her daughter kept the old spelling, and then towards the end of her life, because she is finishing her dissertation for anthropology in hawaii, she reverted to dunham. at the end of her life, she had in her correspondence with her insurance company when she was will, s.m. with stanley in brackets. stanley resurfaced at the end. >> host: the president has said i know she was the kindest, most generous spirit that i have known. and that what is best in me i owe her. he wasn't there when she died. why is that? >> guest: well, to give him the benefi