Ocasio-Cortez then took Fox News to task for incorrectly referring to her as "Cortez" instead of her full surnames. "My last name is Ocasio-Cortez. Full stop. That’s my name," she wrote . The congresswoman explained that in Latinx culture, it's common for children to go by both their parents' surnames. While she's right that this practice is the standard in Puerto Rico, where her mother was born, she mistakenly said that in the island people automatically hyphenate the names. More often than not, people just go by both surnames with no issue. But when moving stateside, Puerto Ricans and other Latinxs hyphenate the names to avoid confusion , since in American culture something like her "Ocasio" could be confused for a middle name instead of her father's surname. ( This is what I did.