Are you thinking about a name change? Or perhaps you have already changed it? The thought of legally changing names has crossed the minds of many Americans and many have gone ahead to do it. There are a lot of reasons people change their names, but there are some reasons that are similar even though the people live very different lives in places all over the world.
Top Five Reasons People Change Their Names
- Family Related Reasons
Some single moms usually prefer that their child’s last name be like their own last name for school purposes. It becomes easier to identify children’s parents by their last names.
Married couples also prefer if every family member shares the last name.
To honor important things during our upbringing, we may also want to change our names to symbolize whoever it is we’d like to honor. Sometimes it is not just as a gesture, but as an obligation to restore a family name that has been very significant in their heritage.
Also related to our upbringing or past, some people have bad experiences in their past and end up hating their legal name, thus changing it when they get older.
- Getting All Your ID in a Single Full Name – REAL ID
For international and US air travel, your name and ID must be Real ID Compliant and uniform starting in 2020. This is also the case if you want to access Secure Federal Areas that are within the US or enter certain federal properties
An ID must be provided when collecting a pension or Social Security to prove that you are entitled to it.
Your legal name should be proven and should match your Social Security name when your driver’s licence needs to picked up or renewed.
With job applications and payments, your legal name should be proven to be the one you are using.
You will be asked to prove that you are the legally intended inheritor once you inherit money or transfer assets, to change title or deposit proceed.
- Simplify Spelling or Pronunciation
Names that are hard to pronounce or spell can be eliminated, shortened or modified.
People get tired when they have to keep explaining or writing names that are very long or complicated. Parents can find it difficult for their child in school or with friends, from teasing, bullying, or being uncomfortable due to difficulty with a first, middle, last, or even a whole name.
Adults can have workplace or other income related situations where a difficult name creates a negative condition but a simplified or preferred name eliminates the problem or even turns it to a plus.
- Branding and Life Directions
A stage name may be legalized at some point by an entertainer if they want to adopt it for everything.
Businessmen and women sometimes adopt and legalize the names they have become known by to suit their business life.
New careers in different fields may spark name changes to improve marketability.
People who are divorced want a clean start and return to the names they had before marriage or take a new name that suits their new life.
- Aspiration, Spirituality And Religion
You can be whoever you want to be! Name change can truly be a life changing experience.
Life experiences might lead people to want to go by different names other than their childhood names.
Adults sometimes pick out names that reflect their beliefs better, for themselves or their children.
Personal goals, faith or careers can lead to name changes when people decide to legalize the names to better follow the paths they have chosen.
Some people, when making a big change in the direction of their life, take on a brand new name that suits them for the new life ahead.names may have bad associations and people want to get rid of them. Sometimes it is the opposite and people want to honor someone important.
If you are in California and need to, or would like to change your name, you probably already have a good reason to change it legally. To find out whether reasons to change names might be disapproved, read Can My Name Change Be Denied. However, almost all petitions to change names are granted.
