No matter what reason you have to change your name – family reasons, professional reasons, personal reasons – your first concern is likely how easy/hard it will be, and what all you’ll need to do. And that’s why we’re here! Helping people change their names, regardless of the reason. It’s literally in our name! We have been helping California residents legally change their name for years.
What will you need to do to change your name?
There are 3 basic steps you’ll need to complete.
- Prepare and submit a petition and the associated required forms to change your name in the Superior Court of California,
- Give the legally required notices of your name change,
- Attend court hearing and receive your name change decree!
Easy, right? Well, sort of. We’ll explain the steps above in better detail:
Prepare and submit a petition and the associated required forms to change your name in the Superior Court of California
There can be as many as 10 different legal forms you’ll need to complete in order to change your name. These will all need to be correctly completed in full and submitted to the correct Superior Court of California as required by the Court. Submitting the forms and required paperwork to the Court includes placing a required newspaper advertising of your intended name change, making the correct number of copies of all your forms and paperwork, taking time off work to go to the court house, waiting at the court house and filing the paperwork and forms with the correct Clerk of the Court. You need to get a hearing date assigned to you by the Court and get stamped copies of your Petition forms for your files. Proof that you fulfilled legal notices that were required of you must go to your judge before your court order to change your name can be approved.
Give the legally required notices to change your name
When you legally change your name in California, you will be required to place in advertisement in a qualified newspaper, advising the general public about your intended name change. If you are a single parent and you are seeking to change your child’s legal name, you will also need to serve legal notice on the non-consenting parent of your child and Proof of Service for your judge, if you reasonably can. You also need to make sure you get Proof of Publication from the newspaper where you publish the notice to change your name. The Proof(s) will need to then be filed with the Court and saved in your own files.
Attend court hearing and receive your decree to change your name
When you first file your paperwork and required forms with the Superior Court Clerk (or sometime after you file your paperwork and forms), you will receive a hearing date. After that hearing takes place, if the Petition to change your name is approved, you will receive an official Decree Changing Name court order from the Court with your name change. A judge will approve the court order, and following the signing of that order, you will be able to obtain from the Court as many certified copies of the order as you may need. That’s it!
While this is a process that can be completed on your own, in order to save you substantial time and money, EZ Name Change offers a full service name change service which will take you through everything required to change your name! No matter why you want to change your name, we’ll help you get it done quickly and painlessly.
