Adding middle name and married name on I-751 application?

[Coleman21 6]

Hi everyone,

My time for filing the I-751 is coming up in a week (the 90 day window opens), and I'm almost done preparing a package. But I have one issue: I want to change my name.

FYI, I'm the immigrant spouse, from Japan, married to an US citizen. Below is my story.

When I got married, my designated last name was my husband's last name on the receipt, but I didn't do anything about it and I always used my maiden name. My conditional green card has my maiden name too. Before filing I-485, I had an infopass and the immigration officer told me that I could change my last name without filing additional fee if I simply wrote my last name as my married name on the application form. At that time I wasn't sure what I wanted my last name to be, because I didn't want to get rid of my maiden name, but now I want to keep my maiden name as my middle name and my last name as my husband's name.

Today I called USCIS and asked if I could just add my maiden name as a middle name on the I-751 application form. This lady said no. Sounded like simply changing my last name to my married name was fine, because I have a marriage certificate, but since no documents record my middle name, (Japanese people don't get middle names) I have to have court order and include the receipt in the package.

But when I read some threads here, it looks like some people could add their maiden name as middle name and married name as last name on I-751. Do I really have to go through court first? When I talked about this to my friend, she says go to Social Security Center before anything no matter what the lady on the phone said, but she knows nothing about immigration. I would really appreciate it if anybody who actually went through the same thing could tell me what to do.

Thank you very much!

P.S. All documents I have show my name as my first name and maiden name.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Coleman21

[Josephin3 0]

What did you end up doing for your I-751 application? I have the same question as you did.