Change of Name Before Marriage

[fredomarian 0]

Hi All,

I have been planning to legally change my name but was not able to come through with it for some reason. I have petitioned my girlfriend on 01/03/09 and if everything goes well she should be here by mid-year. I still plan to go through with my name change but am quite worried that it might affect our petition. But I'm also thinking that there should not be any problem since it's just a matter of removing 2 letters from my old name to the new one. I just want my name to sound more American and it would be nice to have my "new" name on the marriage certificate. I filed the petition using my legal name.

Do you guys see any problem that I may run into by pursuing to legally change my name in the middle of the petition process? Again, I'm not totally changing my name to a different one. I simply want to legally use my nickname which is a 2 letter difference from the legal one.

[fredomarian 0]

Anyone have any advise?

[KimandRuss 0]

I dont really have any advice, sorry. I would imagine it could cause some confusion if you do it in the middle of the process... but it could also be more of a hassle if you wait because then your new wife wouuld have to change hers as well. Hmmmmm.....

[AnnexoxShay 1]

I had a lot of problems related to name ....

My parents were greek immigrants (I was born in Australia) and I didnt like my Greek name soo for years since I was in high school Ive been using Anne as a shortened alternative ... I also was using my Ex Husbands name 8 years of our marriage and another 8+ years since our divorce ...

I dont know how it will affect your K1 but I know it took me weeks to clear up the mess and not to mention the cost ... If you go ahead with the name change you will need to change ID with

Passport

photo ID

Utility bills

Loans

Lease

bank accounts

birth certificate + other offical documents

car registration

insurances

Not that you cant do it easily enough but youll need to do it immediately for when you start AOS if you havent your going to have problems because your Wife will need to be included in a lot of the above to prove a bona fide relationship along with other evidence like photos etc ...

If you go ahead and do this make sure you find out what you need to do to change the name on the official documents ... after I started I soon realised I would have been better off to do a change of name, to the name Id been using and change my birth cert instead of going back to my birth name ... it would have ended up cheaper and less time consuming ..

Edited February 24, 2009 by AnnexoxShay