For UKadians who have legally changed their name — I mean your entire name, not simply your surname for marriage, etc.
How was your experience?
Why did you do so?
Were there any unexpected pitfalls and inconveniences? unforeseen upsides?
How long did it take you to completely “transition,” from a legal and admin standpoint?
How did friends, colleagues, and family members respond?
8 comments
The actual act of changing your name is easy. There are plenty of places that will provide you with a free template for a deed poll. Do not pay for any and you don’t have to enrol it.
Some changes are easier than others and it’s not always who you expect. Driving license and passport? Super easy. Fill out a form, send it off and they do the rest. Some private companies make it incredibly hard and don’t seem to actually understand how someone legally changes their name in this country. Even with a deed poll and passport I continue to struggle with Anglian Water and British Gas.
My dad was upset because he had picked my name but I had been going by my new name for a long time even with family and the change to my surname was just incorporating a second family name in.
An unexpected annoyance was I now have a double barrelled surname and it’s long and forms are annoying
I use a nickname, so much that most people think it is the shortened version of my real name. I have not legally changed it but when completing certain documents I have to add “also known as…”
I thought changing my name when I got married was tedious but it’s even more faff now that I’ve separated and want to change it back.
Just let me have my birth name back ffs!
Changed mine a few years ago. The actual changing part is dead easy – you can knock up a deed poll in less than thirty seconds and then you just need two witnesses to sign it and that’s literally it.
Changing admin stuff can be kind of annoying. Passport and driving licence were dead easy because these organisations know how it works. Had absolutely no faff from either of them. Lloyds got difficult about it and tried to insist they needed an enrolled deed poll until I pointed out to their complaints department that I wasn’t *asking* for anything – I was informing them their information was outdated, and willful failure to keep it up to date is a gdpr violation on their part. The apology letter was in my new name. They were the only ones to give me any real problem about it though, most places are just slow as balls.
The big issue you’ll run into with updating places is that you have more places to update than you originally think and every single one of them will require the original copy of your deed poll to do it – I’ve yet to run into anywhere that will accept a photocopy. Since it can easily take a month+ for places to actually send you your deed poll back that limits you to updating one place a month, so getting through the whole pile can potentially take 1-2 years. I got around this by running off ten “originals” and having my witnesses sign all of them. I’m down to seven now as three have been lost to organisations ignoring my requests to get it back lmao. Upside it only took me a couple months to update everything as I was able to do multiple places at once.
Sort of. When I got married I removed the hyphen from my first name and shifted the last part of it to a middle name. Took his surname too so I could shake my stupid double barrel thing.
Old folk still call me by my full hyphenated name and family do it if I piss them off
I added my granda’s name as a middle name after he died. He used to always pretend to be offended that I was named after my other granda.
My name depends on who is talking to me.
My Christian name is anything from John, Jonathan, Jonny (not real name).
My Surname at birth, was never used. I used my step-fathers surname (not officially), from birth to I was 12. He died, mum re-married, so I used his surname (not official). When I turned 16 my NI card came through, with my birth surname. Mum wasn’t with hubby #3 by then, so I started using my birth surname (for the first time).
I used the name on my NI card, when I got my first job, that’s the name my tax and NI went to. The same for my driving licence (the old paper one). The driving licence was now my ID. Jobs, tax, pension, rent, loans, mortgage. When I was about to get married, I needed my birth certificate, this was the first time I had ever seen it (oops). My Christian name is spelt 1 letter different from my NI card (that the Gov gave me). I spoke to my mum about it, and she was yeah, that’s how i spelt it (think John – Jon). Talking the the wedding registrar, I could change it on my wedding certificate. So my wedding certificate states xxxx formerly known as xxx. I thought this was good enough, and it was for 25 years.
When I got my new driving licence, they would only use my birth certificate Christian name, a name that I have never used, a name that does not exist (for me) anywhere. Jump forward 10 years and replacing my driving licence, they still will not change it.
Then came my current problems. Tring to open me bank accounts. They will only use my birth certificate or driving licence name. Nothing else is good enough. I have 2 bank accounts in the name I use, I wanted to get a new ISA, my banks ISA is crap. I can’t open another bank account in my name, only my original name, which I do not want to do, as it isn’t a name I use.
I have looked into changing it by deed poll, but not gone through with it yet, as I believe the wedding certificate change was enough.
Changed my first name by deed poll in 2017. Easy as pie and I’m now considering changing my surname by deed poll too. Free to do the deed poll, some costs due to new passports (my USA passport was due for renewal anyway, but my UK passport was only a year old so that stung a little) and railcard (£10 to reissue the card, didn’t have to buy a whole new one). PayPal was the worst to change, in the end I closed my account and opened a new one. Everything else was sorted over a few months, no rush.
I’ve also witnessed deeds poll for 3 other people now (I think? Might be 4) which is always fun.