DBS and surname change

[Sleepybetty]

Hello,

I divorced many years ago, but for many different reasons I only got round to changing my name back to my maiden name a couple of years later, when my first child was born. I officially started using my reverted back to maiden name, from the month and year that she was born. I just didn’t want my former married surname on her birth certificate and any of her paperwork. I then went about changing everything back into my maiden name.

At the start of this year I got a DBS for a volunteering role which did not work out in the end because of Covid. On it I put the start of my name change from the month and year my child was born. Lately I realised that some things e.g a credit card account, for example, was probably not changed until a few months later, after her birth - my memory from the birth year is terrible, post natal depression, family problems and this was quite a few years ago! But at that point I was identifying as, and was only known as, by my reverted back to maiden name, using my divorce certificate and birth certificate as proof. My question is would this be therefore be considered an overlap of names, over a few months, because I still hadn’t changed all of my paper work or is it fine to use date of my child’s name as that is when I officially started calling myself by my reverted maiden name?

Sorry this is so convoluted, but I can’t seem to get an answer for this. I just worry that I filled out the form wrong or misunderstood it. I would like to volunteer and do charity work in the future but worry that this could be a bit of problem for me. Or am I overthinking this and worrying too much?

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

I think you are overthinking this. When I got married it took me months to change my name on everything, I think my passport was the last thing I changed. I am DBS checked and I had no issues.

It's fine to use more than one name as long as you declare them. I used to employ drama teachers who had a maiden name a legal married name and a stage name which usually overlapped.

Thanks for the reply. So on the dbs did you just put your new married name only whilst you changed all the bits of paperwork?

You’ll need to declare both names for the DBS anyway, so it really shouldn’t cause any issues. Lots of people change their name on some things but not others, certainly not everything gets changed at exactly the same time, often people just change the name on accounts as things come up.

You have to fill in the form in the name that you are known by now and the name that your ID is under (if you are using your birth certificate in a maiden name then you can use your marriage certificate to denote the change.

Then you also have to declare all other names that you have ever been known by.

Hiya, yes absolutely I declared both my names, but from that day forward I was only calling myself by the reverted to maiden surname and no longer officially using my old married name, although I was in the process of changing paper work etc.

It doesn't matter as long as you declared both names. Promise. I did the same.