Is it difficult to have your name changed?

here you go

My mom actually changed her name within the last year. She was in Kentucky. She made it sound like it was a easy process. And she changed her first and last name.

Well when i went into the witness protection program it took no time.

fairly easy. As long as you’re not a felon, a bankrupt, a child support dodger or a minor you’re probably OK. Check with the District Clerk of the Court in the county and state in which you live for forms. There will be a filing fee of a few hundred bucks. Most Judges are helpful and will walk you through the process. Yes, it takes a court hearing if you want to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. Don’t forget those credit cards and checking accounts, and especially remember to tell all those folks who are going to leave you stuff when they die to get your new name right in the Will.

I like your name.
“Since fifteen-hundred and sixteen…”

I legally changed my first name. I filled out a paper and went before a low-level judge to get the order. It was a simple bureacratic process.

The hardest part is changing all of your id, especially ocial security, passport, etc.

Some advice: get several notarized copies of the court order with the seal (even if it costs a bit). Keep at least one where you keep all your vital records.

You will need them for years to come.

From experience, make sure you are consistent and do it in the suggested order on banjo’s link. If you want to do this, you have to change EVERYTHING, everywhere and make sure that whomever is doing it submits everything correctly. We had a problem in CA with my son’s name. It was registered by the hospital one way (for the health plan), his birth certificate another, and social security wanted a 2nd ID and placed the name that was in error (on health card) on his SS acct. Year’s later, we could not get a state ID because birth certificate and SS did not match exactly. I finally had to go to action line in the newspaper to have them get my a personal rep at the state capital DMV. She had to walk the app through the process and then we had to backtrack to SS to match that up. DMV’s records didn’t match up computer wise to the local offices, so when he got a CADL, we had to go through the entire thing again.

Then came the application for a passport and I had to document everything once again.

Just a head’s up. It can be complicated and cause problems later when you least expect it, so follow stand’s advice as well and think of every possible and make sure your ducks line up in a row.

I changed my last name because my dad never had the money to adopt me. Basically I just had to write a letter explaining why I wanted to change it, then the judge asked if I was a felon, if I owed any money, blah blah blah. Then I paid 100 bucks and poof! Stamped and changed. Easy peasy.

@Randy What a great kid you are to do that. Wish the world had more people like you in it.