I’ve expressed it elsewhere, but I honestly hate my given name. I’ve been thinking about changing it to something I like more, and I’ve been reading up on the process. Seems easy enough. Has anyone here actually DONE it? How difficult was it to do, and how difficult was it to adjust to a new name?
I changed my name, it was no biggie. Contact an attorney to do the paperwork, then just start using the name of your choice. It’s mostly paperwork. My name change was not huge, I merely Americanized an ethnic name, so there wasn’t a lot of getting used to. YMMV, obviously.
I lot of my friends took new names because they had Asian names and they wanted American names. The change was actually harder on me and their other friends then for them. This sounds like what you have in store for you. Expect it to take quite a while for your friends to stop calling you your old names.
My mother also changed her last name (back to maiden after divorce) and it wasn’t too hard. Although you do have to remember to go back and change things like your college diploma and stuff. That can sometimes be a hassle.
Good luck.
I don’t have my college diploma yet, I’m going back for it starting in Spring. I’ve come out of a long period of badness in my life, I’ve severed ties with some family members, I’m starting to get my act together and I honestly feel like my name doesn’t fit anymore. I don’t want to be associated with the person I was.
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Any particular kind of attorney I’d need to talk to?
I had the much the same experience as LifeOnWry although I didn’t even go through an attorney. I filled out the paperwork went before the judge, explained my reasons and he said fine.
I had been using my “new” name for decades before I had it officially changed, however, so the only people I had to notify were the official ones: people like the Social Security Administration, IRS and my state motor vechicle division.
Actually, it solved more problems than it created since all of my pay checks have for years been to my “new” name and I had to send noterized letters every year to the IRS when I filed my income tax explaining that I was indeed who I claimed to be.
I probably should explain that I am not a person in the witness protection program, just a hack writer who wrote under a pen name that became just popular enough to get more acknowledgement than my original name and everyone I had to deal with from then on knew me as the pen name.
TV
My problem is that, in addition to my not liking the name, I share names with a pretty well known romance writer. So speaking professionally, for the writing I do, I really HAVE to do it under a pen name. This’d solve that problem too.
I did it in 1988. You can do it by yourself, but it’s easier to have a lawyer do it. You have to put an ad in the local newspaper stating your intention. This is to give any creditors a chance to challenge you in the event you are trying to skip out on debts. After that, you go to court, the judge asks you a few questions and voila! you’re somebody else.
I would change it informally before you change it legally, simply because it will give you time to make sure that you really like the new name before you go through all the paper work. There’s nothing illegal about using ny name you chose so long as you are not attempting to defraud anyone. Once you’ve been going by the new name for a year, then the paperwork will feel like what it really is–just a minor formality.
I’d change your name at New Years, since the timing works out pretty well: send out Xmas cards this year, and in them announce that for Xmas you are giving yourself a new name, effective with the new year.
I thought you didn’t have a name! You trickster, you. 
I’m as cunning as a fox who’s professor of cunning at Oxford University!
Is anybody thinking of the scene when Homer gives all his new name choices to the judge, who assigns him the only one that was spelled correctly - Max Power.
“I read it on a hair dryer!”
Pretty much agree with what everyone else has said, except that I didn’t bother with an attorney. I went down to the court office and asked one of the clerks what I had to do to have my name legally changed. They had a standard form that I needed to fill out and file; IIRC an announcement also had to be posted in a weekly law publication for six weeks, which the clerk handled for a small fee. They set me up with a court date, where I just had to show up with proof that I had followed the rules and paid all my fees. The judge looked over the paperwork (I don’t even think he asked me any questions), approved it, and handed to his clerk. I was given a certified copy of the court order, and that was it.
I did have to get several more copies of the court order, because one or two places needed one for their records. Most were satisfied with a photocopy; Social Security just needs to see the certified copy (if you mail it to them with the request for a name change they send it back to you, or you can just take it to the office.
Didn’t have any trouble adjusting to the new name, although it did occasionally get interesting when I’d run into an old friend who didn’t know about the new name. My dad still calls me by my birth name, since it’s the same as his, and he once told me that when I die I’m going to have to explain things to his father, who died a year after I was born and was very proud that his first male grandchild was given his name. But that’s not likely to be a problem for you.
Here’s something interesting:
I live in Japan. I know that under Japanese law, a private citizen cannot change their name just because they dont like it or any non-critical reason like that. Even if your reason is accepted, it can cost upwards of US$1000. Some of my friends have told me that one of the few reasons accepted by the gov’t is when your name’s chinese character (Kanji) is the same or somehow similar to a bad word (like devil or whatnot). I guess in those cases, the blame lies on the parents. (Japanese parents take naming very very seriously even to the extent of counting the number of strokes in a name to be sure its a lucky number!)
So anyway, if you want to change your name, be happy you live in the good ol’ US of Eh.
Looking around my desk
Elmers Glueall
Eventually I am going to have mine legally changed. Right now “Jin Wicked” is my name, I use it for pretty much everything except my tax forms. However, I am kind of enjoying having two names, as it makes it easier to conceal my privacy in some ways and keeping things that I want personal, personal. I hear it’s not that much of a big deal if you’re willing to do the paperwork, but the courthouse is all the way downtown and I’m kind of lazy sometimes. 
Oooh, on my desk. Umm. David Bowie? Hmm, I kinda like it, wonder if anyone else has used it. Nah, that’s way too dumb. Pff, David Bowie!
My friend changed her name from “Yiwei” to “Sarah” when she was a teenager. Her parents had no problem with it, and NOBODY ever pronounced “Yiwei” right (ee-way).
Me, I’m eventually going to change my name from “Adrienne E**** C*****” (I refuse to reveal my middle name, and I’m omitting my last name for the sake of privacy) to “Ade C*****.” Why? Honestly, I’ve never liked the name “Adrienne,” everyone calls me Ade, and I REALLY REALLY hate my middle name, even though I’m not sure why.
Jin Wicked is probably the coolest name I have ever heard.
Besides the name of my future first-born child, who shall be named “Cougar Excalibur”
Done it twice. First time before I got married. I didn’t like his last name. He didn’t like mine. We wanted the same last name. I went through a legal name change to one we made up and he took my new one.
No attorney. No notices in the paper. Piece of cake.
Marriage lasted a year. Then I did it again to get my maiden name back.
Got remarried. Kept my maiden name.
It is very hard to get used to using a new name (which is why I still have my maiden - never got used to it the first time I changed it).
Done it twice. First time before I got married. I didn’t like his last name. He didn’t like mine. We wanted the same last name. I went through a legal name change to one we made up and he took my new one.
No attorney. No notices in the paper. Piece of cake.
Marriage lasted a year. Then I did it again to get my maiden name back.
Got remarried. Kept my maiden name.
It is very hard to get used to using a new name (which is why I still have my maiden - never got used to it the first time I changed it).