The dreaded name change

[namechange106]

Hi all

im getting married in 5 months and I was going to make a start on changing my name with unimportant things like store cards and online retail accounts, but I’m not sure if any problems with arise from this? Everything else will take so long I thought I’d get a head start!

I have a few years left on my passport so was going to leave this in my maiden name, has anyone come across any problems doing this? I know passports are usually used for ID and it won’t match anything else once I change everything else. And Of course I would need to remember to book any holidays in my maiden name.
thanks 😀

You'll always have to ensure you book plane tickets in your maiden name.

I personally wouldn't bother til you're married. I published my first scientific paper a few weeeks before I got married and I always wanted my married name on my papers - I was a bit 😬 doing it because it felt odd, but 17 years later it's fine and we're still married

He can take yours.
But you’re ’a unit’ - same name or not.

Your sister in law is marrying your daughter?

Thank you to all the helpful replies 🙂

I wouldn’t change anything financial i was going to do store points cards and I’ll order the new cards showing my new name. I’ve been extra organised and wrote a list out of every where that I need to change my name and what’s needed for each one so I was going to slowly start working my way through some of the easy ones

I understand but I’m more than happy with the tradition of me taking my future husbands name

I had a nightmare changing mine. Did it all the proper way: made an appointment at the bank, they gave me the patter and said all was fine….but they’d only half done it! So I ended up carting my passport and marriage certificate round with me for six months until I sorted it out…..😫

The best tip I got was not to sign for secure delivery when you send your passport to be changed. My friend did this; secure is better and all that. Unfortunately, “secure” meant that you had to provide ID to the delivery driver. Her new passport arrived addressed to her married name…..and all her ID was in her maiden name (because she needed her passport as ID to change everything else). And then she got stuck in the vortex…..

So that’s the downside of keeping your passport in your maiden name; you can’t realistically change anything else official until you’ve done that. From memory, they don’t charge to change it? (Or they gave me a new passport for the regular fee with the rest of the time added on; either way, I don’t remember losing out on that.)

My advice wo

I will change my passport name when I renew it in a few years but I was going to wait until then. I need my passport for ID sometimes so thought that may cause problems occasionally

…..sorry - hit send too soon! My advice would be to do it all at once or not do it. Easier administratively and you get used to it much more quickly…..

If I ever needed to use my passport as ID I'd also show marriage certificate which was fine back then

I really wouldn't change anything until you're married op as it's not your name until then so it wouldn't really be right. You'd be changing your name on a store card or whatever to something that it's not. There are no guarantees in life so until the actual wedding day arrives you don't know if that will ever be your name at all.

Easier not to bother changing at all.

Though a pps comment about men with terrible surnames reminded me that I have met two different men who did take their wives names. One had previously had the surname Gay. The other was Smith and preferred his wife's more unusual name.

My own opinion is that it is impactful from career point of view.
I say this with two name changes under my belt - I do look good in white !

Why do your children have your husband's name?
Never understood this.

Yes I'm afraid I don't understand it at all. I was 34 when I got married and well established in my career so it felt really unnecessary to have to explain to everyone that I was changing my name. Most women I know work wise didn't change their names. It never caused me a problem with my kids and I'm glad I didn't since I ended up divorced. My DSis is also divorced but at 55 felt she couldn't change it back. She hates her name.

I was married for 15 years before I got round to changing anything, then did it all in one go - just make sure you have two or three copies of your marriage certificate to send out, as I lost 2 that weren't sent back recorded delivery🙄

As PP said to change for most things you will need proof of the name change, so you would have to do a deed poll before your wedding. I'd leave it all until afterwards.

Maybe because that's what she wanted?

😐

If you’re going to change your name by simply taking your soon to be husband’s name, then as I understand it you will need your wedding certificate to do that? As such not sure how you’d go about changing your name before you’re married?

I could be wrong as I didn’t do it that way. I couldn’t decide what to do about the name thing. Eventually I decided to change my surname to that of my husband’s but then use my maiden name as a middle name (didn’t have a middle name previously). So doing it that way meant I changed my name by deed poll.

I took the approach of changing the most important documents first. So passport was number one as I then used that to verify my new id etc. But I suppose you could just use your marriage certificates to change everything else and do the passport later.

FWIW you can still go by your old name at work even if you legally change your surname. You’d need to flag your full legal name for payslips/pensions re bank details etc. But it’s perfectly fine to go by another name professionally vs what your name is legally.

How can you change it before you get married? What in earth kind of head start will you got with no marriage certificate? Or are you going to do a deed poll to get a head start here?

Reason not to do this in bits and pieces: your job requires background checks

make sure all your documents are the same name at all times.
Commit to spending several days in one go making all the changes because you do not want the headache and delays caused by a check coming up with mismatches.

It doesn't take a long time to change your name on things - no big deal. The good thing is you can keep or change your name nowadays - no pressure to do either. No need to give a reason why to anybody.
I remember coming under huge pressure at work because I kept my own name on marriage (the Miss/Mrs thing seemed to be a big deal to some pea brained men and women. "What do we call you" was the shriek -I told them, " em - Stone, as always"

The only issue and reason why I changed my name on passport before it ran out was matching my passport to you vaccine passport - not sure if/when/where you are planning on going require a vaccine passport but it would have been a nightmare if my covid pass was in a different name to my passport!

I said in my original post it was going to be easy things like points cards and retail accounts online as none need marriage certificates

@ShirleyPhallus haha! Glad I wasn't the only one rummaging around in my head trying to make that sentence work. Who knows...maybe that's a thing where she's from...