ST. CROIX — Former Senator Donna Frett-Gregory said her decision to legally change her name from Dorna is about bringing official records in line with the name she has used her entire life rather than politics, even as the move unfolds during a gubernatorial election year and she confirmed that she is exploring running for governor.
“I’ve always known myself to be D O N N A,” she said, spelling out the letters of her name. “And my name is spelled differently on my birth certificate.”
Frett-Gregory, who attributes the misspelling of her name on her birth certificate to a hospital error, said she needs to petition the court to have her name spelled as it was intended to be.
A legal notice published on January 29 in The Virgin Islands Daily News indicated that Dorna Alecia Frett a/k/a Donna Alecia Frett-Gregory has applied to the Superior Court, Division of St. Thomas and St. John for a change of her name from Dorna Alecia Frett to Donna Alecia Frett.
Frett-Gregory, a three-term senator who served in the 33rd, 34th, and 35th Legislatures from January 2019 to January 2025, was Senate president during the 34th Legislature. She emphasized that during every campaign she complied with the requirements of the Virgin Islands Board of Elections, including submitting affidavits and listing Donna as the name by which she is commonly known.
“Every time that I have run for office in the Virgin Islands, I have complied with the Board of Elections requirements and submitted the appropriate affidavits,” she said, noting that she provided Donna as a nickname.
Frett-Gregory confirmed that Donna appeared as a nickname in her election filings and said she has consistently signed documents using that name, maintaining that the documents she signed while serving as Senate president were valid.
“My signature is my signature,” she said.
The name on Frett-Gregory’s voter registration card is “Dorna A. Frett-Gregory.” The name “Dorna Frett-Gregory” was listed among candidates from the St. Thomas/St. John District on the official 2018 election candidate listing. “Dorna Frett-Gregory” is listed in the Elections System of the Virgin Islands’ “voter lookup” database as having an “active” status as a “Democrat,” with a registration date of May 10, 1988.
Questions about the use of a name that differs from an elected official’s legal name were formally raised in September 2023 by Senator Alma Francis Heyliger. She requested an opinion from the Legislature’s legal counsel to find out if elected officials can utilize names that are not their legal names. If the answer was no, Heyliger asked if there would be any legal ramifications for the institution the elected official serves.
“I was assured that even with her doing it, it would not affect the institution,” Heyliger said about Frett-Gregory going by “Donna” opposed to “Dorna.”
The Legislature’s legal opinion issued on September 21, 2023 stated that any actions of the senator would be valid under the “de facto officer doctrine” and would not have negative consequences for the Legislature as a whole. The de facto officer doctrine provides that when officials act under the color of authority and are later found to have a defect in their eligibility, their actions are still legally binding with respect to the public and third parties, unless and until a court removes them from office.
The legal opinion found that while questions about name usage could theoretically be challenged in court — where a judge might consider the official’s intent, including whether there was an intent to defraud — there would be no negative consequences for the Legislature as an institution.
That conclusion, Francis Heyliger said, is what allowed her to move on.
“That’s why I left it where it was,” she said. “If you want to continue doing that, and our legal counsel is saying it’s not going to affect the institution, I’m not going to fight with you, but if it was going to affect the institution, I was going to have an issue.”
For Frett-Gregory, the current court petition to change her name is meant to put the issue to rest.
“It’s something that I intended to do, and now that I’m settled down and I have time, I am aligning my name to its intended spelling,” she said.
Frett-Gregory said she wanted to make sure everything is aligned as she moves forward. Whether that forward path includes a gubernatorial run remains to be seen, but the former Senate president stressed that the name she has always known herself by — Donna — is the one she wants reflected legally on the record.
“That’s how I was raised,” she said.
