His actual parents were Dorothy Gardner and Leslie Lynch King, but this recent President took his name from his adoptive stepfather. Who was he?

The man who would become the 38th U.S. President was not born with the famous name he carried into the White House. He entered the world in 1913 as Leslie Lynch King, Jr., the son of Dorothy Gardner and Leslie Lynch King, Sr. The marriage was short-lived and troubled, and his mother fled with her infant son just sixteen days after his birth, eventually settling in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

There, Dorothy met and married a paint salesman named Gerald Rudolff Ford. He formally adopted the young boy, who was soon known informally as Gerald R. Ford, Jr. This new name became his identity, though he didn't legally change it until 1935 at the age of 22, at which point he also altered the spelling of his middle name to the more common "Rudolph."

Ford had almost no relationship with his biological father, meeting him only once as a teenager. He always considered his adoptive stepfather, the man who raised him, to be his true father. This story of a challenging start followed by a stable, loving upbringing in the Midwest became a cornerstone of his public identity as a decent and dependable leader.