Who here has legally changed their name?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have. Finally. At the age of 40. I was born in the former Jugoslavia and was given a very Slavic name that is quite common in Serbia but has for all intents and puposes no currency outside the former Jugoslavia. My family immigrated to Canada when I was something over a year old, and there my original name caused me a lot of grief. Besides no one being able to pronounce it properly, I got teased for it in school. I never liked it personally either; it sounded different to all the other names I heard around me. Already around the age of 4, I first said I wanted to change my name. I recall my father telling me plainly that I could do so once I became an adult. By 10, I was using an abbreviated form, that is, the first three letters. This was not entirely satisfactory either as this name sounded like nothing, essentially. From time to time people would mistake it for a similar-sounding English name; at first I corrected them but eventually, I let at least one person use that instead. Shortly afterward, at 23, I went to Prague to teach English. At a month-long course for English teachers, I decided on a whim that I didn’t want to introduce myself by the shortened form of my real name and have to go through the indignity of explaining it. Instead, I used the similar-sounding English name. Since then I have used it consistently and have come to entirely identify with it.

I had planned to legally change my name to the one that I normally use for a long time, but it took me until now, as I have had several obstacles. The main one was the fact that I was between two countries. I eventually got Czech permanent residency, which would have legally entitled me to change my name there, but was concerned about trouble at the border should I present a Canadian passport with one name and an European Union/Czech resident card with another. In 2018, however, I became a Czech citizen, eliminating that concern (due to getting a Czech passport, meaning I don’t show my Canadian one at the airport there and vice versa). As of last year, I know I will no longer be living in Canada. After realizing this, I made the final decision to apply for the legal name change in the Czech Republic.

The procedure for doing this was simple, but interesting. I went to the municipal public registrar’s office with my Czech national identity card, my Czech birth certificate (this was issued to me after I got the citizenship), and an application letter in which stated what I wanted my name to be changed to, together with a justification for my decision. The clerk was the same one who had conveyed me to the administration of my Czech citizenship oath and was surprised to see me back. I told her why I was there and briefly explained my reasons for my decision to her orally. She proceeded to take a thick book off her shelf and said we would have a look to see if my name of choice was on the Czech list of permitted names. (In the Czech Republic only names that already exist can be registrered. As I understand, there is one civil servant who is in charge of adding new names to the book when someone presents evidence of them being in use somewhere). As luck should have it, my chosen name was there (right below my birth name!). Therefore, she said they would approve the change. I was told to come back after the holidays; as of Monday, I have the decree in hand. I have finally done this after first considering it around the time I was in kindergarten!

I am now waiting for a new birth certificate, which is being prepared by a special public registrar’s office which handles birth certificates for naturalized citizens. It will hopefully be issued in about four weeks; then I will be able to change my national identity card, passport and other documents. For the sake of brevity, I will omit here why I utlimately failed to use an opportunity to change my name in Canada during a stay there. However, I may still have it changed there from abroad based on the Czech name change (this is apparently an option; my main concern is that I need to make sure I can also change my social insurance card or otherwise tie the change in with my SIN; when I get around to it, though, I will research the procedures for doing this as well).

2

I changed my first and middle names about 13 years ago when I transitioned. I simply downloaded the form and took it to the county courthouse, paid $34, and in a couple weeks my name change arrived in the mail with the judge’s signature. At least that’s how it’s done in Virginia. My last name is ethnic Greek Sicilian, and Anglos usually stumble over pronouncing it, but I kept it. :slight_smile:

3

Moderator Action

Moving thread from GQ to MPSIMS.

4

I changed my name too, in my case to force several branches of the Spanish government to abbreviate it the same way. People involved were confused: why would I change my name to an abbreviation of it? Both culturally and legally, in Spain they’re equivalent!

Then I’d show them my passport/national ID (name abbreviated one way) and my driver’s license (name abbreviated a different way). After a mystical moment (“oh my God!” “mother of God!” “in an official document?!” -> this last one from the policeman who issued my new ID card), they all understood it.

Now the name listed in my ID, passport and driver’s license is the same to non-Mediterranean eyes (French, Portuguese, Italian and Greek-speaking people had no problem seeing that the two forms were actually the same name). The name in my EU Social Security card is also the same. Some other branches of the Spanish government insist that there is No Way to update names, but whatever, thankfully their own cards aren’t valid for travel :stuck_out_tongue:

5

I have a sibling who did because first Utah didn’t recognize same sex marriages and they took on their partner’s last name. They have since transitioned to non gender specific so they may change their name again.

6

My last name was legally changed when I was 17, even though I’d been going by my stepfather’s name since I was very young. He made it official because of legal issues it would cause later in life.

7

A friend of mine did. His parents left the USSR somehow (I believe they escaped during WWII), and made their way to Canada. When they arrived, their English was barely existent, and the immigration officer couldn’t read the Cyrillic characters in their documents. So, he made a guess as to the spelling of their last name in Latin characters, based on what they told him it was.

The result was a messy mashup of consonants, with a few vowels sprinkled in. This is the name that my friend had during high school, which stumped teachers calling the roll at the beginning of the school year. “Okay, now is Mr. Mart–is that Maty–um, Marty-see, no, let me try again, Marty-say…” At which point, my buddy would put up his hand and say, “That’s me, and just call me by my first name.” Which, translated from the Russian, was a common English name.

We caught up some years ago, and I found that he had changed his last name. He had grown tired of having to spell it out for jobs, credit cards, banks, and so on; and then to explain why the English spelling and the pronunciation of his last name didn’t match, so he legally changed it to an English name. He did not try to translate his Russian last name into English; he just picked an English surname at random, and legally changed it.

8

There must be millions of people around the world whose names are poor translations of their original names because they moved to a country with an alphabet script from one without one.

I used to have an assistant, who had arrived in the UK from Pakistan as a child with parents who spoke or wrote little or no English. Some official had translated their pronunciation of his name as Jan Dad and that was what we all knew him as and what was on his UK passport.

9

There’s one branch of my father’s family that has a slightly different spelling - and pronunciation - of our last name. Theirs is slightly more “ethnic.” I was always told that there was a mistake at Ellis Island, and their name got misspelled. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I found out that their name was the original name of the entire family, and the entire rest of the family changed theirs, back when my father was a boy.

10

Also have this on both sides of my family. My dad and his younger brother were given the original German spelling, but all the other siblings, parents, aunts and uncles had the Americanized versions. Dad and uncle used the Americanized version their whole lives, but their SSN cards were issued under the original name.

My mom’s father and his siblings were raised with Americanized versions of the original Czech surname, but their parents (who were the ones who immigrated) continued to use the original name.

To the original question: I’ve known a handful of people who have legally changed their names, most to adapt to their gender. One to escape the association of their name with horrendous crime. One to take their stepparents name. And one because they wanted to be different (think from John Doe to Sprinkles Zucchini Wombat).

11

I haven’t changed my name but my older son changed his last name. His mother and I weren’t married when he was born and we decided to let him have her last name on the assumption that we’d either marry (and could change it then) or split (and she’d have custody). Instead, Option C arose where we split and I took custody and she mostly faded from his life. Later, I met my wife and when our baby was on his way, he expressed interest in changing his last name so we’d all be under one family name.

Had to fill out the paperwork, get nominal permission from his mother and run a classified ad in case his many creditors at age 11 wanted to keep tabs on him but was otherwise painless. I don’t think we ever got a new birth certificate for him which hasn’t been an issue yet but is something this thread reminded me to look into.

12

My niece changed only the spelling of her first name. She changed it to a different spelling than is traditional. She has a PhD in music education and is a professor.

13

Not legally, but sort of. I was born in 1937 and my father was looking for a job. He had owned a service and gas station and went broke. After looking for a while, he finally decided to shorten the name so it wasn’t so obviously Jewish. He never got it changed legally, but it was not illegal to use a different name, so long as there is no fraudulent intent. This all happened shortly after I was born and the old name went on my birth certificate.

The result was that all my school records, SS number, all tax and other records, driver’s license, draft card, every official and unofficial document was under the new name, not the one on my birth certificate. In those days no one asked for a birth certificate to register to vote. Then when I applied for a passport, they were willing to give me under a name not on my birth certificate, but I had to find two people who knew me under both names to swear an affidavit to that effect. Fortunately, my parents were both alive. No one else in the whole world knew me under the old name. So I got the passport and subsequent renewals have been made with no further ado.

Then I emigrated to Canada and used the only name I had ever used and eventually became a Canadian citizen under that name. All went well until I retired and my retirement account became a life annuity and they wanted a birth certificate showing my date of birth. So I figured I would get a birth certificate under my original name and then have to explain the discrepancy. So I wrote the Penna. bureau of vital statistics in Harrisburg and asked for a copy of the birth certificate along with a check for the required amount and my address in Montreal. Instead of the birth certificate, I got back a letter saying that if I could send them photocopies showing that I had been using this name for at least ten years, they would issue me a birth certificate showing that name. I photocopied everything: college diploma, old passports, etc. and along came that new birth certificate. That was in 1999, BTW. I’m not sure it would have been that easy after 9/11.

So have I changed it legally? Not at all clear.

One other point. When I applied for research grants from the Province of Quebec, the name line always specified “Nom a la naissance” and I unhesitatingly lied and then swore that everything I had filled out on the form was correct, so technically guilty of perjury. A co-applicant also lied on the grounds that all her papers were in her married name and her maiden name would have been meaningless to any referee.

14

when Star Wars TPM came out a local radio station gave $1000 to anyone who legally changed their name to Obi Wan Kenobi. A woman did it legally. Don’t know if she changed it back later, I assume she did.

15

Newly-wed women do this all the time. Personally, I couldn’t ever change my name, even if I get married. It’s German/Polish, and I absolutely love it. It’s unique, people tend to love the sound of it (even if they struggle to pronounce it the first time), and I love knowing there’s only one of my in the world. I get why people don’t like similar names though, and I’m glad we have a system in place to change it.

16

As I was approaching my 30th birthday I was dealing with some personal issues which now seem very trivial to me, but at the time I felt that one way of dealing with them was to change my name. So I looked into the legalities involved, went down to the courthouse, got the papers, paid the fees, and managed to get a court date on my 30th birthday. The judge looked over the papers and asked me a couple of questions, then signed the court order and passed in on to his clerk.

After getting a few certified copies of the court order I had all my official records (SSA, State ID, etc.) changed, then changed the names on my bank accounts and credit cards. The biggest thing I had to deal with was getting my friends and family to adjust to using my new name; my dad (who I was named after) never did accept it, and to his dying day only referred to me by my birth name. Occasionally over the past thirty-odd years, like when I got my RealID, I’ve had to dig out a copy of the court order to verify that I was the same person shown on my birth certificate, but other than that it hasn’t been any problem.

17

I did, because I got sick of the following:

“You must use your full name, so we’re going to call you Firstname M. Lastname.”

Me: “But I go by Middlename Lastname. I’m happy to be Firstname Middlename Lastname, but please don’t call me Firstname, Firstname Lastname, or Firstname M. Lastname.”

Banks, governments, doctors, and everyone in society: “Fuck you.”

So I spent loads of money doing the official name change and changing all my ID to Middlename Grandmothersurname Lastname," a really minor change that shouldn’t have required any bureaucracy, but I must say I’m quite satisfied. Well worth it to me.

18

BTW the person I mentioned above went from Rachel to Raychl. She is a very free spirit .

19

I had the same experience, Dr. Drake. I did hire a lawyer to do this for me because the state of Texas had me so pissed off I was afraid to try representing myself in court. Cost about $1000. Money well spent.

Texas was refusing to give me a driver’s license because the name on my social security card did not match the one on my California license, which was the name I had used everywhere since I got married umpteen years earlier: middle name/maiden name/husband’s last name. Social security would not change the name on my SS account without my changing it legally, in court. Actually it turned out to be a good thing I did this at the time because later going on Medicare it would have been an issue anyway, but it still pissed me off.

20

Based on my recent trip in front of a judge to clarify what, exactly, my legal name is (thanks, RealID :rolleyes: ) I have been told that currently you do not need to update the birth certificate so long as you have the legal document from the judge/court.

As an example, I now have a collection of documents starting with my birth certificate (not updated), marriage license, then court name change showing the chain of events which I am told is valid for all purposes in the US.

Your mileage may vary, not valid at all times and places, and if this is a legal issue talk to a lawyer and not some random person on the internet.

On the other hand, the husband of one of my friends has a typo in his birth certificate. Since I don’t want to give out the personal information of someone else I’ll change the birth month and type, but basically instead of his month of birth being September it’s written as “September7”. When he went to get his RealID he was told his birth certificate was not acceptable. Apparently, in order to get a RealID he’ll have to go through the legal process of correcting his birth certificate even if anyone who reads English (and number of other European origin languages using similar names/spellings for the month in question) knows very well it’s a typo and what the month of his birth is. But nooooooo… now the bureaucracy will not accept it. At least in Indiana.

Me, I didn’t view what I did as a name change so much as a name clarification because the government somehow wound up with more than one version of my name and instead of screaming at bureaucrats for the rest of my life I “changed” it so everyone would use the same version going forward. But legally it’s called a name change because that’s the process I went through.