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This article is a reflection of my own personal experiences and should in no way be taken as legal advice. The information below may be incorrect.

When my wife and I decided to both change our names we knew it would be a hassle but I was expecting to find helpful information about how to do it — it isn’t that unusual after all. However, there seems to be lack of shared personal experience on the web at the moment for this daunting task. I hope this article will fill some of the gaps if you are interested in or in the middle of this process as well. This article will be from a Illinois perspective but hopefully it will be general enough to help others as well. There are of course many services you can pay to help you with each step of this process, but what’s the fun in that :-)

Name changes occur at the state level. The best general reference and guide I found online was at New Last Name. A name change starts with a name change document. This is most often a marriage certificate but can also be a court order or (I think) a divorce judgment. Obtaining our marriage certificate by mail was by far the fastest process of this whole experience. Look for your county clerk’s website vital records section for instructions on obtaining a certified copy of your marriage certificate. Certified copies of your marriage certificate will cost about $10 each and I would recommend ordering a few for your personal records as well as those you will need for your name change.

Using a marriage certificate limits your name choice to those names appearing on the certificate itself. In Illinois, this would be your husband’s or wife’s name. I understand that in other states you can write in a new name when applying for a marriage license but not in Illinois. This means if you want to choose your own name you will need a court order.

Allow at least 8 weeks to obtain a court order for a name change. This will be in addition to the time it will take to change your name with other agencies after you obtain the order. A court order for name change is basically a judgment on a civil suit your old name files against your new name. You will need to prepare legal documents, file them with the court clerk, publish an advertisement in a newspaper for 3 weeks stating your intention to change your name and stand before a judge to receive judgement on your new name. Luckily, there is a website Illinois Legal Aid that can really help with this process. Filing your paperwork and standing before a judge will cost you about $400 but expect other miscellaneous expenses as well.

One of the nice things about the court order is that you only need to file one order to change the names of everyone in your family. You can list your spouse and dependents on the same order which saves time and money. Also, If you file at a major courthouse (like the one in downtown Chicago), there will be an agency with a desk there that will handle your newspaper advertisement needs as well. This sort of one stop shopping will help take the burn out of the whole process.

After you’ve obtained your name change document (marriage certificate or court order) it is time to update various agencies and institutions you have personal and business relationships with. Allow yourself 4 to 6 weeks to complete all these updates. Your list will differ from mine, but hopefully this will help you develop your own list.

There are a few that most everyone will have to update including Social Security, Passport, and the DMV. These should take a high priority for you as soon as you receive your name change document. We updated Social Security and DMV the day of our court hearing but I chose to hold off on Passport until near the end of the whole process thinking that having a photo ID with our new name (driver’s license) and one with our old name (passport) may come in handy if we needed to prove our identity. For example, some businesses need to see a photo id to accept your credit card as payment. If your credit card is not yet updated but your driver’s license is then you would be out of luck. While this helped with piece of mind, it was never an issue we actually experienced.

Social Security is free and easy to update. You’ll need a filled out application, your name change doc, and photo id. We brought these to our local office and 2 weeks later got our new cards in the mail. Same number, new names. DMV was similar for driver’s licenses: bring your name change document, your old driver’s license, and five dollars.

I returned to the DMV to update my car’s registration and title with my new name. I am still making payments on my car so I had to get my title released from the bank (lien holder) for name change at the DMV. In order to release my title, my bank required me to refinance my loan under my new name (I faxed them my name change doc for proof). After, that I received my title in the mail and brought it and my name change doc to the DMV. There were two confusing forms to fill out once I got there. Registration was about $5 and the title was about $65.

With Social Security (they automatically update the IRS (fed and state) which is nice) and the DMV completely done, I turned my attention to some easy ones: I changed my name on our mailbox, and wrote a note to our landlord to let him know about the change. We also updated our cell phone voice mail messages and facebook accounts. But more on the online/social networking updates later…

I next went to my HR department at work. They were really good about taking care of many of the changes with business cards, payroll, medical and dental insurance, 401k plan, Time and Billing/Expenses program, and the name plate on my cubicle. A couple of other changes I made were my voice mail message, email signature, and since I’m in IT I made some changes to AD and Exchange (login and email) as well. An email sent to all the employees should be enough to let everyone know about the change; expect some questions but I found after a week or two the questions die down.

Banks, brokers, credit cards, loans, insurance, and investment banks were next for me. They ranged from very easy to moderately annoying. They mostly wanted a copy (one needed an original) of the court document and an updated photo id. I spent a lot of time on the phone and faxing documents. One thing I did learn from this process is to call the bank back three days after faxing them anything. In one case I waited for two weeks before calling to find out they had lost the fax. Make sure to get new copies of all your debit and credit cards as well as ordering new checks.

Utilities, PayPal, Netflix, Web Hosting, Audible, IPass (highway tolls), CTA Card (Public Transportation), and parking rental are mostly interested in making sure your payments are still coming in. They will make the changes to your name on the account but also make sure you update your automatic payment information if bank accounts or credit card name and number have changed. Changing your username for web access to your accounts will be covered below.

Doctors, dentist, and specialists are an easy one but should probably make your list at some point. In my experience they required little proof (a photo id at most) and a photo copy of your new insurance card.

Professional organizations (e.g. State Bar Association for attorneys, Nursing Association for nurses etc.), memberships (AAA, clubs, etc.), professional service providers (attorney, accountant, etc.), wills, health care directives, power of attorney, etc. are all important updates as well but ones I didn’t need to make. Let us know in the comments of any wrinkles you experience with getting these changed.

Passport is a big one but a relatively easy one to complete. This site has the official explanation but unofficially you are in either of two categories: you are replacing a passport that is under a year old or you are replacing a passport that is over a year old. And the difference is primarily monetary. In both cases you need to send in an originals of your old passport, name change document, an application for a new passport and some recent photos, but in the case of an passport over 12 months old it will cost you $65. Young passport replacement is free. The process took a few weeks and we received our new passports and our original documents in separate envelopes a day apart.

Updating your birth certificates is really more of a personal choice. Basically you find the address of for the office of vital records in the state you were born and send them your court document. They will add an addendum to your birth certificate and send you a new one. Basically that means they won’t replace your old name, they’ll cross it out and write the new one in below it. I haven’t yet figured out why you would want to do this unless you are changing gender so I leave this one as optional.

Logins, usernames, online updates/social networking as well as the large subtopic of Google services and accounts may be an topic best suited for another article. This can be a pain in the neck and will vary widely from site to site. Some sites have an option in your account settings to change your username, others you can email your request, and some it’s just not possible. Google unfortunately is on the harder end of this spectrum which is why I have been putting off both writing about it and actually doing it. For these kinds of tasks I’d highly recommend staying organized in a spreadsheet since your list of online accounts to change is likely quite long.

Here’s the summary list of places to notify of your name change. This list will hopefully jog your memory to think of other places that are applicable to your life (like gym membership for example), listed in the order they were mentioned:

• Name Change Document
• Social Security
• Passport
• DMV
  • License
  • Registration
  • Title
• Mailbox
• Landlord
• Voice Mail Messages
• Facebook
• HR Department
  • Business Cards
  • Office Nameplate
  • Payroll
  • Medical/Dental Insurance
  • 401k
  • Email Address
  • Email Signature
  • Time and Billing
• Banks
• Brokers
• Credit Cards
• Loans
• Insurance
• Investment Banks
• Home Utilities/Bills
• PayPal
• Netflix
• Web Hosting
• Audible
• IPass (highway tolls)
• CTA Card (Public Transportation)
• Parking
• Doctors
• Dentists
• Medical Specialists
• Professional Organizations
• Memberships
• Professional Service Providers
• Wills
• Health Care Directives
• Power of Attorney
• Birth Certificate
• Logins/Usernames
• Social Networking
• Google Services/Accounts

I hope this relatively comprehensive article on my experience with name change is helpful for you. For more information on applying for a marriage license, see your county clerk. There is a nice feeling after completing all of this that you know where all your accounts are and their status. It was also a good time for us to consolidate accounts, close unused accounts, and generally blow the dust out of the infrastructure that runs under our lives. That and I’m really good at using a fax machine now…

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