I’ve got an issue … with my name.<\/p>\n
And I’m not talking about how no one in my real life seems to like my name …<\/p>\n
I’m talking about effectuating a legal name change.<\/p>\n
Now … I’ve assisted plenty of people in legally changing their name.<\/p>\n
It’s really no big deal … in my state of residence … the following elements are principal to a name change :<\/p>\n
1.) Criminal background check … you have to fill out your petition to change your name … take it to the court clerk … let them stamp it … then go to the police department … have your fingerprints taken … then send it to the state police for a criminal check … which they report back to the court clerk … if that comes back negative … then the clerk will schedule you for a hearing … usually about 30 days out, because …<\/p>\n
2.) You must have Notice of your Name Change Petition published in a newspaper with a bonafide subscription base printing at least weekly editions for a minimum of two years in your county of residence at least 14 days before your hearing … and ….<\/p>\n
3.) You must live in your county of residence for a least a year before filing a request.
\n
\nNow compared to other states … many don’t make you go through the process of a criminal background check … but that’s really no big deal … believe it or not, you butts … it shouldn’t be a problem for me !! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
What the issue is for me is the combination of the 1 year residency requirement in your county AND the publication requirement. Now publication is standard everywhere … but 1 year of living in a county before filing is pretty demanding.<\/p>\n
And I don’t want to change my name here in my county of residence because in my line of work … regardless of whether or not I publish in the standard publicatioooon or the smallest, acceptable county newspaper … people I know … work with … are going to read it … become aware of it … for me it’s like publishing it on a billboard.<\/p>\n
And I can’t go to another county to change my name … because I’d have to live there a year before I could make the request … and I don’t have a year !! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
It’s not that I’m embarassed about it … or want to keep it a “secret” in an all encompassing way … I just don’t want to call unnecessary attention to myself and create excess talkage about me. Which will happen as soon as it becomes known at the courthouse.<\/p>\n
Now state court rules provide that the publication requirement could be waived on order of a judge, but that still requires talking a judge into sealing the record … and the basis for such a request is more related to protecting the safety of an individual from a battered spouse\/significant other perspective … not for issues of pure privacy. And even if the record is sealed … it’s really not sealed … there would bound to be plenty of leaks.<\/p>\n
I checked out the possibilty of maybe just changing my surname via amending my Judgment of Divorce, then with a different surname … publish and change again … but at least be a step removed from direct linkage … but it’s not clear you can accomplish it via an amended Judgment and state law only allows “women” to change their surname via that option … and though I could make the argument I am one … I doubt it would be a prevailing argument here .. at least for now. Creative idea though, huh? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
I’ve thought about going to another state to accomplish the task … one with less onerous residency and timing requirements … but there would be some value changing it in my home state … because we do have a really nice statute with regards to getting new birth certiicates with a new name and gender designator … and though I could do it with a foreign state name change order … it’d be easier at that point if it was all done … domestically.<\/p>\n
And I do have some pressing timing issues … I’ve got my own personal records to address … my firm has to determine what it’s going to do with its firm name, as once my surname changes, we have to change the firm name contemporaneously … plus my notary expires in two months and I need to renew it, and in my state … there specifically is NO option for changing it at anytime except for renewals … which means either I get it changed for this renewal or am stuck with my old name for notary purposes for the next four years … though I could always just let it expire and not renew.<\/p>\n
I really don’t have a good solution … and suspect that I most likely am just going to have to accept that I’m going to become the talk among others in my profession … and let my function become known to many more than I really want … which will have a very direct impact on my career and practice here.<\/p>\n
*shrug*<\/p>\n
(In case you’re wondering … despite the shall we say … “less than embracing<\/i>” reception my chosen name has received among many … I am keeping the first name, Amelia (though I go by Amy, Aims and Nice Ass), and last name that I have chosen. My middle name though is up for grabs. Personally, I still really like the name I have been using … Jill … it’s nice and the syllables work. But my mom is suggesting Rebecca, which is my grandmother’s name, and then of course Gina is still in the running … which would be for The UnUsual Suspect amusement purposes !! :))<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve got an issue … with my name. And I’m not talking about how no one in my real life seems to like my name … I’m talking about effectuating a legal name change. Now … I’ve assisted plenty of people in legally changing their name. It’s really no big deal … in my state…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":139,"label":"General"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Amy","author_link":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/author\/amy\/"},"comment_info":7,"category_info":[{"term_id":139,"name":"General","slug":"general","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":143,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":775,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":139,"category_count":775,"category_description":"","cat_name":"General","category_nicename":"general","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}