You may change your name to simplify it, to honor someone, to take a family name or to remove one. Your name change might be for your career, to turn the page or to reach for your future or your child’s future. You may want to enhance your identity, to unify your ID, or take a name for spiritual reasons. Everyone’s name matters.
We know this is important, so…This EZ Name Change website has information about How To…How Much…Where To…How Long…Who Can…and much more. Look around, take your time and get all the EZ Name Change Information and Help you need!
Steps To Changing Your Name
No matter what reason you have for changing your name – family reasons, professional reasons, personal reasons – if you are thinking about it you’re 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 I need to do to change my name?
There are 3 basic steps you’ll need to complete.
- Prepare and submit a petition and the associated required forms for your name change to 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 for your name change to 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’ll get a hearing date for your name changed assigned to you by the Court, and you’ll also get back stamped copies of your paperwork for your files, which you’ll need to keep for the legally required advertising and notice of your intended name change.
Give the legally required notices of your name change
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 alsoneed to make sure you get Proof of Publication from the newspaper where you publish your name change notice. The Proof(s) will need to then be filed with the Court and saved in your own files.
Attend court hearing and receive your name change decree
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 your name change is pproved, you will receive an official Decree Changing Name court order from the Court with yourname 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 tochange your name! No matter why you want to change your name, we’ll help you get it done quickly and painlessly.
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about NAME CHANGE. Click on any of the links below.
- Prepare your Name Change Petition for Court filing. Our EZ NAME CHANGE Questionnaire helps you do that in 7-15 minutes online. All the completed forms your court requires with all the copies needed to finish the whole process are in your hands for court filing within a few days.
- File your Petition in the correct Court and get your hearing date. We provide you with the correct court information and that court’s procedures for where you live. Our instructions will walk you through it, step-by-step.
- Give Notice: You’ll give notice to the general public and required private individuals, if any. We’ll give you all the paperwork you need, Easy-To-Follow instructions, information and guidance for it all.
- Get your NAME CHANGE Court Order. At (or sometimes before) the hearing, you’ll receive your signed Decree Changing Name or other Court Order. We’ll give you guidelines, instructions and filled out forms for completing this step in your local court. On this day, remember to smile! You did it!
- Get your New Name established. It’s official! Use it and let others know. Give notice to all your important relationships and connections. We’ll give you a handy checklist with contact information for the most important ones.
- 1) $115.00 is our charge to prepare your completed Petition (with all copies for filing) and provide you with step-by-step Court Process instuctions, public notice advertising contact and rates information, and a Post-Name Change checklist and contact information. If your Petition includes more than one Child, or 1 (or 2) adults also, there is an additional $115 for each additional person-but then all the other costs are combined (court filing, public notice). To learn more about any additional costs click here.
- $435.00 to file in Superior Court (California). San Francisco and Riverside currently charge $15.00 more and Courts always can change their own costs. Some courts charge a $30 reporter fee in addition.
- $30 to $500 (usually $80 to $125) to give public notice, depending on your county and which publication you choose. We’ll provide you with completed paperwork, instructions and a list of publications to compare costs.
Some Petitioners will also have to provide legal notice to certain relatives of a minor Changing Names. We’ll provide guidance about those situations and costs as they occur. But, if the notice is by personal service, it may be $35 or more each. If the notice is by first class mail, then it’s the cost of postage.
We recommend you get at least 1 Certified Copy of your Decree Changing Name (for official records changing purposes), which costs $25.50. Many people get 2 or more Certified Copies; 1 to keep in a safe place and 1 to use when changing the records.
It will take you about 7-20 minutes, or less, to complete our questionnaire.
In California, it’s generally about 6-8 weeks between the time your Petition is filed and the day you receive your Decree Changing Name. The big amounts of time are for the Court to schedule a hearing date, perform its due diligence on your application, and for public notice advertising in advance of the hearing. Courts all over the state and all over the country have different rules and scheduling time frames, so you’ll need to find out the answer for your unique circumstances.
If you have some urgent situation, it may be able to be accommodated and you may wish to consult an attorney about it.
- Your paperwork is inaccurate, incomplete, or reveals you to be ineligible
- Someone lodges an objection to your Name Change that your judge considers to be meritorious
- The judge believes your Name Change would achieve an improper result (i.e., defraud someone, hide from creditors, avoid a duty or obligation, likely to incite violence, trade on the name of a famous person, improperly hide a criminal past, etc.).
We’re California Name Change Specialists and we’re passionate about helping people legally get their Name Change exactly the way they want it.
Our online Questionnaire (“Start My Name Change Now”) took 2 years to develop and lets you get your court-specific Petition for Change of Name started in just 7-15 minutes. In a few days, you’ll get Your READY-TO-FILE professionally prepared Petition for Change of Name for an industry low $115 charge (comparison: LegalZoom $139+; lawyer $499+). And, you’ll get all the copies you need for filing and serving, easy to follow step-by-step instructions customized for your local Superior Court, pricing and contact information for giving legal notice, and a Checklist for changing records once you have Your Legal Name Change.If you want FULL SERVICE, we can even File and arrange your Advertising for you too. All you need to do is provide us the information and go, by appointment, to get your Name Change Court Order on approval by your judge.Your access to us is whenever you want, by phone or email. Our Court Information is current and personalized to Your Name Change in Your County and Your Superior Court.
We think Your Legal Name Change is a big deal! … and worth every letter of it!