I think that “Deed Poll” is a British concept. Anyway, I’ve been through this.
My parents named me <firstname> <middlename> <lastname> but I have always been known as <middlename> <lastname>. It pssd me off that many official documents referred to me as <firstname> <middleinitial> <lastname> or even just <firstname> <lastname> so I decided to drop the <firstname>. My passport and driving licence etc. are all in my new style. Yea!
BTW I got a local solicitor (another Britishism) to do the paperwork for the same price as the faceless web-based people wanted to charge.
I have not legally changed my name, but I started using a derivative of my middle name for basically the same reason - I was known by a shortened version of my first name as a child, but when I tried switching to the full first name, found that everyone called me by the short version anyway. So it was necessary to use something else entirely. I didn’t like the middle name as it was, because it sounds just like a man’s name (and I have an uncle with that name). So I, uh, feminized the middle name some more by adding the “-ie” on the end.
People who do not know me personally, but are addressing me based on documentation, always call me by the wrong name. First they try the short version of the nickname, then the full version, then the unisex-sounding middle name. Weeds out the people you don’t want to deal with on the phone, but can be inconvenient at the doctor’s office.
And yes, it took some getting used to going by the “new” name. It took my family a lot longer, even. They still slip up often, or say my name in such a different tone of voice that it comes across as the verbal equivalent of making the quotation marks in the air with your fingers as you say something.
In some cases, I’ve just registered for certain things with the name I now go by. I have a credit union account and a department store credit card in it. Technically, it’s legal to go by any name you want in the U.S. without legally changing it, as long as it is not done for the purpose of committing fraud. Many institutions, however, will not go along - they will insist on using your “legal name”, asking for identification to prove it. I imagine it will get harder to use a “nonlegal” name for anything as the U.S. gets more paranoid about terrorism, etc.
A little-known factoid, it’s the same in Britain. Saying that I changed my name with my bank (again, long version to short version) and they were happy with it. I guess if I’d changed it from Andrew to Rupert or somesuch they might have raised an eyebrow - like this :dubious:
I’ve never changed my name officially, but I’m currently adjusting to being called by a different name. Except the name I’m adjusting to getting called by is my real name, I’ve just gone by a nickname my whole life.
My real name is actually Antares, but my parents, friends, co-workers, and basically everyone who I spent even the slightest bit of time with my whole life has always called me Tara. I started at a new job about a year ago, and there were already three Tara’s there. I tried to get them to call me Tara but it just didn’t work, so everyone calls me Antares. I still get confused sometimes. Especially since one of the other Taras is in my same very small department. I’ve also begun performing a lot more with my music, and I go by Antares for the purposes of that, so it’s taken a lot of adjusting getting used to calling myself that. Takes time, but I kind of like it now.
I changed my name by deed poll (which is not just British apparently) because my first name was not pleasing to me. I replaced it with a foreign nickname for that first name, kept my extremely distinctive middle name and surname, and all is good. After going to that effort to secure the name I wanted, I didn’t change it when I got married.
My mother changed her name by deed poll about 6 years before I changed mine, not coincidentally also changing it from the same first name that I later rejected, to just the abbreviation of her middle name that she habitually went by and her surname, dropping her first name and other middle name entirely. (The other middle name was a saint’s name she took many years before that when she was briefly Catholic.)
The law can be tricksy on changing your name. i go by a shortened version of my first name. i LOATHE the full version and refuse to use it. This is not a problem when i am in Scotland as the law there is that your name is whatever you happen to choose to call yourself* so i just told my bank, GP etc that i was only to be referred to by the shortened version.
It DOES cause a problem in England though as the law there requires an actual change by deed poll and banks and other official agencies etc will not countenance calling me by my chosen name. This is one of the many reasons that i have mostly left my ‘official’ life in Scotland.
No they don’t - as I said above I told my bank I wanted the name on my account changed to the shorter version and they did it straight away, no questions asked.
Possibly your bank. I wouldn’t know as i ditched my obnoxious English bank (for reasons other than the name thing) and remained with my old Scottish one. I was referring to things other than banks too though. Many organisations (to be honest it’s only been English ones IME) require some sort of written ‘evidence’ of a name change i.e. a deed poll.
There was a feller here in the States who changed his name legally to “Trout Fishing in America” after the novel of the same name. (Scroll down to last story)
In a reverse of the trend I see here (changing long cumbersome names to shorter versions), my ladyfriend has informed me that when we wed she’s taking the chance to change her first name from its shortened ‘nickname’ form (Connie) and replacing it with a longer, more ethnic version (Consuelo). Apparently, her mother didn’t get to name her what she wanted because her father objected to the name’s ethnic flavor. She still intends and expects to be called “Connie” but wants the long version for her offical and legal name.
My wife and I did this, except I changed my last name and then she took it in the marriage ceremony.
I didn’t really have any problems adjusting to the change, myself. It stirred up more resentment in my father’s family than I expected, given that I’d actually asked them about it ahead of time. But I’m still happy I did it.
My father changed his name unofficially about when I was born. But he put the original name on the birth certificate, not realzing he could put any name he wanted. He did the same with my brother born five years later, but used the new name when my sister was born 6 years after that. He did it because he thought he could more easily find a job (this was in 1937) with a less Jewish name.
Fast forward to 1959. My brother joined the air force and they refused to let him use any name but the one on his birth certificate. So he used the old name. When he joined the aero club and got a pilot’s licence, that was the name on it and the FAA refused to change it. So finally, he blew $500 on a lawyer to get it changed legally and then the FAA did change it.
Fast forward again to 1999. I was about to retire and in order to collect my pension, I had to give them a birth certificate. So I wrote away to the PA dept of vital stats, prepared to argue with my employer that we were I. To my great astonishment, I get back a letter from PA saying that if I could prove that I had used the new name for ten years, they would issue a birth certificate in the new name. I hadn’t asked for it, but of course I had given a name and address for them to send it.
So I photocopied my diplomas, and several expired and one active passports. (The State Dept had given my no problem, asking only a form to be filled out by people who knew me under both names. Fortunately, my parents, the old people in the world who had known me under the original name, were still alive.) I got a new birth certificate immediately. Amazing!
I refused to become a Canadian citizen, although I have lived here for 37 years, because they told me that they would insist that I use the name on the birth certificate. So I guess Canada does not follow common law in this regard. Now that I have that birth certificate, I guess I could.
