Your name change should appear on your Decree of Dissolution (a.k.a.
Just write your new last name on your marriage license and show your marriage certificate (not license) to places such as the DMV, your bank, and Social Security Administration as proof of your new last name.Īnd if you get divorced and want to legally change your name back to your maiden name, you can usually get the judge to take care of that during the divorce proceedings. If you decide to change your last name when you get married, you don’t need a court order. In most states, men and women can legally change their last name to their new spouse’s surname, hyphenate their two surnames, or create a new amalgamation of their surnames (like when actors Alexa Vega and Carlos Pena got married in 2014, and changed both of their last names to PenaVega). The simplest times to change your last name are during marriage and divorce. “It might seem obvious, but we get several inquiries a year for people needing to make a legal name change because of a misspelling.” 2. Name Change Service recommends that people who are legally changing their name make sure they’re 100 percent certain of the spelling and format of their new name. You also can’t change your name to commit fraud, evade law enforcement, or avoid paying any debts you owe. You can’t name yourself after a celebrity (because that could be viewed as intentionally misleading), a trademarked name, a numeral (like 4 or 8), a punctuation mark (like ? or !), or something offensive or obscene. If you don’t like your birth name, you can legally change it to whatever you want … with a few exceptions. You can name yourself anything, with a few exceptions.
If you’re considering getting a legal name change, here are seven things you should know. “You won't be legally recognized by your new name until you've submitted applications with the Social Security Administration, DMV, etc.” Obtaining a legal document such as a marriage certificate, divorce decree, or court granted petition will allow you to change your name but won't make your name change official, explains Phipps. “The biggest thing to keep in mind about any name change is that it is a process, rather than a one-stop shop,” says Anna Phipps, VP of Experience at HitchSwitch, a name change service geared towards newlyweds. People legally change their first, middle, or last names for a variety of reasons: Major life changes-getting married, divorced, or undergoing a gender reassignment-might catalyze a name change, or people might just hate the name they were born with.