Québec does, but AFAIK, not the rest of Canada. Getting married in Québec does not give a free legal name change the way it does in most other jurisdictions. From the Justice Québec (ministry in charge of marriage) website:
I don’t know what the motivation is/was behind this regulation, other than perhaps cost-savings/ease of record-keeping.
To legally change your name, it must be done through the courts and/or the Directeur de l’état civil, as described here. Everyone eligible must go through that route if they want to change their names, newlyweds included.
I seem to remember an old Dragnet episode, where a character called himself Mike Coopersmith, but some witness saw him sign something as just plain “Mike Smith”, which she thought was suspicious. It turned out his name was in fact Smith, but his middle name was Cooper, but he preferred to use Coopersmith in his everyday dealings.
As I recall, at the end of the episode, where they listed what happened to the characters, “Michael Cooper Smith” was “found guilty of whatever and sentenced to nine months in jail” .
IIRC - the common wisdon I have heard in Canada (except Quebec, see above) is:
As mentioned you can use whatever name you want, as long as it is not for fraud. Some guy ran for mayor of Toronto once as “Rik of the Universe”. However, your “legal” name is the one you were born with, unless you change it legally. Driver’s licenses and passports, especially since 9/11, they want to match up with real legal documentation.
When you marry - may vary between provinces - you can at the time of marriage assume the spouse’s surname. This then becomes your legal name. Originally this applied to the wife, but I know a few couples that have adopted each other’s surname with a hyphen. Not sure if this was a legal name change. If you don’t do it at the time of marriage, you cannot assume the surname later on without a legal name change.
Yes, I knew one fellow in our company from the middle east who was called “Sam”. At a get-to-know-us-all dinner in 2003, he said “one thing about me you may not know is that ‘Sam’ is short for ‘Osama’.” His co-workers then launched into a rendition of “Ohhh-sama, Ohhh-sama” to the tune of “Oh Donna” by Ritchie Valens. I sense this ribbing had happened before. (I also saw a guy at a computer convention once with the name tag “Rhett Butler”; I asked him “Joke nametag?” and he replied it was his real name; he semed mystified why anyone would doubt this. Whereas a co-worker David Crockett’s parents just had a cruel sense of humour. )
It would be odd if the remaining provinces didn’t have some procedure in place to get your name change recognized by the government and thus have it reflected in your government-issued ID. A quick check shows that Ontario and Saskatchewan both have official procedures. You can find the government procedures for name changes by doing a web search for something like provincename name change.
Oh and there are situations in the United Stqtes when you can get a “free” chance to change your name. For example, if you apply to be naturalized as a citizen, there’s a space right on the form where you can indicate a name change. Also, in some states, form to apply for marriage licenses also have this option.
FWIW, I can use my husband’s name socially (and several of my friends wish I would, since he has an awesome last name!) but all my legal paperwork remains in my name. I didn’t want to deal with essentially having two names, so I never bothered to use his name even in social situations. It’s a great telemarketer filter though “Hi, may I speak to Mrs. D-?” “Nope, sorry, no one by that name here, please remove this number from your call list!”
My husband was given the same first name as his father, on his birth certificate. But was always called by his second name, (which was actually his mother’s maiden name!). While in high school he worked a summer at a children’s camp doing maintenance. While there, someone gifted him an old gas jockey shirt with the name ‘Bob’ embroidered on it. So the campers took to calling him Bob, and soon everyone was doing it. Tres amusing. When he returned to school, which included a couple of the campers, it spread. Until he simply went by ‘Bob’. That’s what he was called when I met him, and what I’ve always called him. Simple, right?
Not so fast - his first paycheque came under Bob, and he had to have it switched. When he got his passport he reverted back to his real name. Once we’d been together for some time I began to interact with his family more, and constantly stumbled over referring to him as ‘Bob’. It seemed disrespectful to the people who gave him his name. But, eventually, I just gave up and called him what I was always used to, ‘Bob’, they didn’t seem to mind.
After a few more years, it got so the bank would take cheques made out to Bob, without so much as a blink. So I guess you can just decide to change it and you’re good to go.
But whenever I have to call a Dr, or Dentist, or such, it’s a royal pain in the ass, as he effectively has 3 names which his file could be under. In addition, his last name is extremely common.
I’m just repeating the story as I heard it. I don’t stand behind any of it. It’s all hearsay. Got a problem with it, take it up with God. I’m sure he’ll care.
I live in the UK and went by two different names for many years (it’s complicated and a bit dull). I recently got a deed poll to change to my preferred name precisely because it was the easiest way to get it changed over for all official purposes not because there was any legal requirement to do so.
Spain is one of the countries where changing your name officially requires paperwork, but it also has what we could call “logical aliases”. If your name was Robert Charles Wilson-Smithers, the Spanish government considers “Bob”, “Bobby”, “Charles”, “Charlie”, “Chuck”, “Bob Wilson”, “Chuck Wilson”, “Bobby Smithers” and any other combination which is an evident shortening of the whole name a “logical alias”; they wouldn’t even list it in a list of aliases. This may include shortenings and substitutions which are not so evident: “Pepe” is often used for guys called “José” - this isn’t obvious if you’re not familiar with it, but it’s obvious here. I have a very complicated name and the US government has over 20 “aliases” listed for me, of which all but one are shortenings or typos and would therefore not be considered aliases under Spanish law (the last one is “María García” and I imagine it’s linked to a call I once had from a debt collector asking whether I was her - apparently that debt led to Uncle Sam thinking that any María-anything living in Florida at the time went by that name).
On the other hand, if you had that same name and introduced yourself as “Frank” or “the great Houdinani”, that would be listed under “known aliases” (in the second case and if it was a stage name you would be able to trademark it; not the first one because it’s a very common name).
A guy named Bill Koch pronounced his last name as coke. He got tired of everyone saying it wrong so he asked to get his name changed to Koch is it. (after the Coke ads) but the court denied his request.
