Changing name

[Shal_Ohol 36]

Has anyone changed their name, after moving to US, after getting married? I have intended to change my name but as we didn't want to delay the process of getting the visa, I decided to hang on to my maternal name until I move. Now that the time of moving is getting closer (hopefully), thought I'd start looking into this. How does this affect greencard and SSN?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated. 

[Wuozopo 4,293]

13 hours ago, Shal_Ohol said:

Has anyone changed their name, after moving to US, after getting married? I have intended to change my name but as we didn't want to delay the process of getting the visa, I decided to hang on to my maternal name until I move. Now that the time of moving is getting closer (hopefully), thought I'd start looking into this. How does this affect greencard and SSN?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated. 

You can use the married name any time you want in the US. The marriage certificate is a name change document. Tell the bank, tell the neighbors that’s your name. Your green card will be issued in the visa name. That will cost you $540 to get the name changed on it. Social Security will change your name for free and issue a new card, but they have to find your name in the USCIS SAVE database. Since you will enter using your maiden name, that’s the only name they can use from my experience. It gets complicated. You can try Social Security with you marriage certificate for a name change once your initial card arrives. They do all kinds of different things depending on what office and how well trained they are...or in most cases aren’t trained well. In person visits are still limited. Some get appointments saying they need it to file taxes. 
 

A new passport with name change prior to interview would have been ideal because they could have issued your visa in the new name which would have sorted the other issues. I am not sure if getting a new passport prior to US entry will do any good. You might get more replies in a general forum because this would apply to anybody, not just UK. 

[Shal_Ohol 36]

On 3/12/2021 at 11:50 PM, Wuozopo said:

You can use the married name any time you want in the US. The marriage certificate is a name change document. Tell the bank, tell the neighbors that’s your name. Your green card will be issued in the visa name. That will cost you $540 to get the name changed on it. Social Security will change your name for free and issue a new card, but they have to find your name in the USCIS SAVE database. Since you will enter using your maiden name, that’s the only name they can use from my experience. It gets complicated. You can try Social Security with you marriage certificate for a name change once your initial card arrives. They do all kinds of different things depending on what office and how well trained they are...or in most cases aren’t trained well. In person visits are still limited. Some get appointments saying they need it to file taxes. 
 

A new passport with name change prior to interview would have been ideal because they could have issued your visa in the new name which would have sorted the other issues. I am not sure if getting a new passport prior to US entry will do any good. You might get more replies in a general forum because this would apply to anybody, not just UK. 

 

I don't think changing my name on passport before travel is a good idea at all, since my visa is going to be on the maiden name passport. I was thinking of changing name my name on my passport after going to US, then inform USCIS about the name change, and so on and so forth.

 

The main reason for me to not change my name immediately after marriage was also because I wanted to change my middle name too. Traditionally, our middle name is our Dad's first name growing up and after marriage, we take our husband's first name to be our middle name. We don't have to do it, but I wanted to do that but seeing the hassle coming with it, I might just be sticking to taking my husband's last name

 

Thanks for your response on how much it will cost, helps weigh in the options  

Edited March 15, 2021 by Shal_Ohol

[Wuozopo 4,293]

5 hours ago, Shal_Ohol said:

I don't think changing my name on passport before travel is a good idea at all, since my visa is going to be on the maiden name passport.

Your visa in the old passport is still valid but you would have to show both passports at POE...one for entry and one to show the valid visa. I just don’t if it helps. A scan of the updated passport at POE should generate the I-94 in the married name. That ought to fix you up to get the SSN and a driver license in your married name.

 

As an aside: one of our VJ members in the past tried to change her middle and last name when she applied for adjustment of status from fiancé visa. She wanted to ditch her father’s name because of a strained relationship.  USCIS rejected the middle name change. She could only change her last name to her married name with the marriage certificate as the name change document. She could get a name change through the courts first or wait until she applied for citizenship, at which time you can pick a totally new name if you wish. She got her middle name changed through the courts, then applied for her green card. 

[Shal_Ohol 36]

1 hour ago, Wuozopo said:

As an aside: one of our VJ members in the past tried to change her middle and last name when she applied for adjustment of status from fiancé visa. She wanted to ditch her father’s name because of a strained relationship.  USCIS rejected the middle name change. She could only change her last name to her married name with the marriage certificate as the name change document. She could get a name change through the courts first or wait until she applied for citizenship, at which time you can pick a totally new name if you wish. She got her middle name changed through the courts, then applied for her green card. 

Yea, I think I will change my last name once I get to use and deal with the middle name situation some time in the future. This is really good to know though! Other than my passport, my middle name isn't actually on anything so that makes life much easier haha!