Taking one part of double barrel. Deed poll?

[6strings1song]

Hoping someone who has been through something similar will be able to advise. I got married last year and want to change my name to my husband's name. The problem is that he has a double barrelled name (hyphenated). In day to day and professional life he only uses the first part of the double barrel. My intention is to change my name to just the first part of his name. His official name is the equivalent of Smith-Jones and I will just be Mrs Smith. Future kids will also just be Smiths.

Will my marriage certificate be enough for all the name change malarkey, or will I need a deed poll? Reading online you can use your marriage certificate if you intend to double barrel a name, but no advice on just taking one part of someone else's barrel!

Numerous reasons for just wanting one singular name. His two names are too long to fit on forms and is unfortunately a rather bizarre sounding double barrel, which causes endless confusion. I am pregnant at the moment and wanted to get this sorted before baby (single surname) arrives. 😊

@6strings1song did you ever to bottom of only taking one part of double barrel, or have you actually completed change now (1 year on)? Interested as I am looking to do the same, as in only taking one part of my husbands surname and not sure if can do with just marriage certificate or do I need to go Deed Poll route. Thanks

Once you have a passport or driving licence in the new name, almost everything else will pretty easily fall into place in terms of evidence of your name.

I would check what the passport guidance says.

However I changed my name by deed poll and it was about 15 mins of admin. Fill in a form online, print it off and have it witnessed. It's not much hassle. The passport office accepted it with no problems. I couldn't believe how straight forward it was to be honest.

I think that as long as they can see how the new name has been derived then the marriage certificate should be sufficient.

If you did the passport first then that paves the way for the other places that need ID as proof

I would think you might need a deed poll for that. I kept my maiden name as a middle name, and I needed a deed poll rather than a marriage certificate. The deed poll was super easy, accepted by the DVLA and then I could use my new driving license for proof to change everything else. I have several ‘originals’ of the deed poll so could send off to multiple people if needed. I used the free deed poll website, which took around five minutes.

@GeoGirl12 I did get to the bottom of it. I did my own deed poll using templates off the Internet. I have several original copies and used one of them to change my drivers license. I then use this as the proof for most other things. Despite being a year on, I am still only about halfway through my name change list... complicated by being pregnant, then having a baby and then drawn out contractual changes at my job meaning that I have held off changing some things until the contractual changes were resolved (didn't want to confuse the process). They are now resolved....so I should get my arse into gear and finish my list!

If it is any help, when my son was born we were able to have his birth certificate reflect my married name (single barrel), my husband's name (double barrel) and my son's name (single barrel). This was without any fuss and my driving license accepted. My maternity notes were still in my maiden name, so I was a bit nervous that would somehow cause an issue, but it didn't. 😊

What a faff. It's a shame you didn't keep your surname and give it to your child. Or change to your surname plus Smith, you and your husband could both have done that, then given child both surnames and only used one day to day.

I have two surnames and so do my kids, it's no big deal. The entire Spanish population does it.

@AnotherEmma Huh? That's great for you, but we didn't want a double barrelled surname going forward for our children. DH already has issues due to his ridiculously long surname not fitting on forms. Also whenever he has to give his surname for something he regularly gets people asking what's the "back story" for his unusual double barrelled name, which is boring and intrusive. We didn't want that for our son.

I am sure Spain does it well, but in the UK double barrelled names are not the norm and unfortunately some people seem a bit funny about them.

As for both of us changing our names to some combined family name... that is even more faff from an administrative sense, we would have both needed deed polls and twice the name change requests.

Your husband is the one whose name is a pain, as you state, and yet you are the one changing your name. If one of you was going to change their name, it would make much more sense for him to change his. Since you say that having just one surname is much easier (which I don't dispute - I just don't see why it had to be one of his surnames, when you already had one surname yourself).

He could have changed his double barrelled name to your single surname without a deed poll.

But of course there are always reasons men "have to" keep their names and women "have to" change theirs. (Of course the real reason is patriarchy.)