# Did you or anyone you know ever get a legal name change? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2017, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082 "2017-07-25T15:41:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082/81 "2017-08-14T05:51:43Z")
I havn not researched this very thoroughly, but I understand that any name you use and are commonly known by becomes a “legal” name, regardless if you’ve ever taken any actual steps to effect a name change. The purpose of such a legal principle is so you can’t avoid legal responsibility for any contracts, just by saying that’s not your real name. If an actor or a writer or a disc jockey sign a contract using their stage name, it has the power of their real name. When my mother died, there were papers bearing four different variations on her name. He birth was never formally recorded, either with a public agency nor the church, so there was no way to verify her real name, nor her date or place of birth. (Which I think makes me an anchor baby.) She just wrote down whatever name she happened to be using at the time when applying for things like social security or drivers license. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082/82 "2017-10-02T04:40:04Z")
The wife had her name legally changed at about age four months. Her parents were Chinese emigrants to Thailand, and shortly after she was born, they decided it would be best for all their children to have Thai surnames and so changed it for all of them (but not for themselves). This was a very common move on the part of the large Chinese community in Thailand. In getting the wife’s Immigrant Visa for the US, this was an extra task for us to document, as US Immigration wanted to know all about that. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082/83 "2017-10-02T04:49:36Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > I had a horrible relationship with my father. My grandad (mothers side) is someone I alway looked up to. After my father died I legally changed my last name to my mothers maiden name. I know a guy that did this, too. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082/84 "2017-10-02T06:28:05Z")
One of my COs in the army legally changed his last name from “Malka” (Queen) to “Melech” (King). I wasn’t familiar with the term “fragile masculinity” at the time, but even then I knew the guy had issues. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082/85 "2017-10-02T12:31:41Z")
I wanted to legally change my middle name and surname when I was much younger (terrible relationship with my father, whose first name is my middle name, and prolonged teasing over my surname in middle school), but once I started researching my family history I started being a bit proud of my surname and I’m past the bitterness over my middle name\*. I do know someone here in Sweden who recently underwent a legal name change, simply for the fact that her birth name – a very sweet and kind word in Persian – is altogether too close to a viciously racist epithet in English. Can’t really say as I blame her, to be honest, but it’s unfortunate nonetheless. \*Perhaps not fully; a year or so ago I went for a colonoscopy and for some reason they used my middle name instead of my given name. So on the video screen for the procedure, there was my father’s name instead of mine. So just before the camera went in, there was the odd coupling of my father’s name and the relevant portion of my external anatomy on screen at the same time. “What do you know,” I thought to myself. “Truth in advertising.” ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082/86 "2017-10-02T15:09:37Z")
My wife’s given name was a diminutive of a formal name (think “Chrissy” for Christine). It was a silly sweet, girly name that her mother was enamored of. There has never been a less sweet, girly woman than my wife. It was also an odd variation on the name, so nobody spelled it right. On top of that my wife still suffers the psychological effects of childhood abuse at her mother hands. She actually changed her name twice. When we married she dropped her middle name and replaced it with her maiden name. Then, in her late twenties, she legally changed her first name to one she used as the name of a persona she created for an historical recreation group. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082/87 "2017-10-02T15:24:42Z")
My college girlfriend legally changed her name several years after college (and after the two of us broke up). She was diagnosed with a psychological disorder in the early '90s, at the height of the “repressed memories” fad – her therapist had convinced her that her issues stemmed from repressed childhood memories of her parents being involved in a satanic cult. This turned out, of course, to be completely bogus, but she was estranged from her family for several years as a result, and changed her name during that period. Thankfully, she and her family were eventually able to move past the situation and reconcile, but she kept the changed name. Another friend from college had grown up with the surname of his stepfather, since that was to whom his mother had been married when he was born. My friend had no real ties to the stepfather (whom his mother divorced not too long after my friend was born), or the surname. Thus, while we were in college, he adopted the surname of his biological father – not too long after we graduated, he went through the legal name-change process to formalize it. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082/88 "2017-10-02T16:26:18Z")
> [@Battle\_Pope](#): > > My wife changed her first name before we met. She found out she was named after the woman her dad left her mother for. funny story when mom was born her mom was out of it because of complications and her dad names her out of the blue and said “I always liked the name” and since one wasn’t picked out her mom went with it Come to find out she was named after the African American s cleaning lady who worked where he did whom hed had an off and on fling with for a decade … ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082/89 "2017-10-02T19:08:40Z")
My brother legally changed his last name to the Gaelic name of our Irish ancestors. Oddly enough, his wife and kids still share MY last name. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-get-a-legal-name-change/792082.md?page=4)