Are you wondering the steps to take to change your first name? Names are intensely personal. They define you, carry memories with them – both good and bad – and sometimes represent familial bonds. For some folks, their first name holds them back, makes them feel incomplete or just unhappy. So they change it. The anecdotes featured here show that people have very individual reasons for making a name change. Once you read their stories, we’ll tell you how the steps to take to change your first name.

Marci was born Marcia. People pronounced her name incorrectly, spelled it wrong and even, horror upon horrors, referred to her with the Brady Bunch refrain of “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” She tried in vain to become Marcy in junior high but her peers wouldn’t have it.

A New Name, A New Life

In the mid-1990s, after the death of her husband and a move to a new city, Marcia was looking for new beginnings and thought that since not many people knew her, the switch to Marci would be easy. Though her daughters were concerned, Marci’s coworkers respected and obliged her request. Even the phone company had ironically shortened her name on caller ID by eliminating the last A. “I used to joke that I had dropped the A at the end of my name and sent it to Canada where they always need A’s,” Marci says. “I truly began to think of myself as Marci.”

But name changes aren’t without difficulty. “The problem began when I returned to where I grew up,” Marci says. “Friends and relatives had a very difficult time calling me Marci – even now my mother has to concentrate to remember. People who do not see me often still call me Marcia. It sounds too weird to me now. I feel that Marcia is a person from my past and she was not me.”

Changing Your Name to Fit Your Personality

Harriette, formerly Harriet, always hated her first name. “It’s an old name and not hip and cool like the person I saw myself to be, especially during the late 1960s and early 1970s when I was in high school,” she says. Just before she turned 50, Harriet was in a serious car accident that changed her life and confirmed that something had to be done about her name.

“I came up with some very cool names like Amber and Suki, but knew in my heart that everyone would still call me Harriet.” So she started to play around with the numerology of her name instead, adding a T and then an E. “I instantly loved my name and legally changed it, even though it was just two additional letters,” Harriette explains.

From First Name to Middle Name

Not all name changes are as “subtle” as Harriette’s and Marci’s. Elizabeth was born Nancy and never liked it. “I want to cringe mightily every time I hear that name,” she says. “When I went off to college I decided to use my middle name instead,” but not before she considered a handful of exotic alternatives. “Francesca? Bianca? Sofia? If I was going to leave Nancy in the dust, I certainly wanted to step it up a notch,” she says. But a cousin warned her to choose wisely in order to make life easier. “She brought up things like credit cards and old friends trying to track me down; all valuable aspects I never thought of at 18. I decided my middle name was the way to go.”

For years, Elizabeth signed everything as “N. Elizabeth” to avoid the legal name change, at least until she got married. “But professors, the lady at the bank, the nurses at the doctor’s office and myriad others would all call out ‘Nancy’ since that was what their documents revealed. I had to stomach that name for 20 more years since I didn't marry until I was 38!”

Making a Name Change Legal

Sometimes people are happy to go by a nickname, substitute their middle name for the first name or just pretend that they have a different name entirely and hope it catches on. But being required to fill out your legal name on a tax form, credit card application, doctor’s office paperwork or job application will regularly remind you of what your real name is. That can be a lot to stomach for those individuals who aren’t enamored with what’s on their birth certificate.

Name changes are taken seriously by the courts – and they have the right to deny your wish to change your name, particularly if it seems fraudulent or, frankly, ridiculous. Petitioning for a name like “God” or “Spiderman” won’t exactly fly, nor will the attempt to adopt an obscenity, racial slur or misleading name (e.g. a celebrity’s name).

The laws for legally changing your first name will vary depending on the state in which you live but the process is generally similar overall, involving a fee and a court date.

After gathering information from various federal and state agencies, here’s what you can expect:

• Contact the appropriate local government office – usually the department of public health or health services, or the department of vital statistics – to get information about the process and acquire the proper paperwork for your state. 
• Complete all necessary paperwork – this can include, but isn’t limited to, a petition for a name change, an order granting a name change, a legal backer form and a notice of petition to the public. Have the documents notarized, if required.
• It will likely be necessary for you to give a reasonable explanation about why you want the name change, particularly to insure that the switch isn’t being done for an illegal purpose.
• A legal notice will be posted announcing the name change, giving the public a chance to object.

Harriet says, “I found out which courthouse handled name changes and filled out the paperwork, paid the fee which was about $300 and waited for my court date.” Part of her process involved the court posting her name change in the newspaper for four consecutive weeks. “Just a few months before my 50th birthday, I went to court, held up my right hand and said, ‘I do.’ It was like marrying myself.”

For Elizabeth, she used the word “odd” to describe her name change process, which involved hanging her paperwork on a wall inside the courthouse. “For 30 days, the paper that said I wanted to change my name from ‘Nancy Elizabeth’ to ‘Elizabeth’ was stuck to a bulletin board for everyone to see. It could be researched, petitioned, made note of or whatever else. I was allowed to come back at 31 days, take the paper down, pay another fee and walk away with a certificate emblazoned with my new name!”

A Few More Steps

Once your name is legally changed, there are still a few measures that need to be taken. Along with notifying your employer, bank, doctors, lenders, insurance companies and credit card companies of the change, your name must also be registered with various government agencies, all of which will likely require legal proof of the change and may or may not charge a fee. These include the Social Security Administration (SSA), the IRS, passport office, post office and the department of motor vehicles (DMV).

Depending on your state of residence, there may only be a brief window of time in which to make these notifications – from as few as 10 days to as many as 60 days – while other states do not have any definite deadlines. There’s also an order to follow – for instance, you’ll need to notify the SSA before you try to make any changes at the DMV.

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