How to Legally Change Your Name

Why would you want to legally change your name? Well, if you’ve ever met anyone whose parents were hippies in the 1960s you wouldn’t ask that question. There are a host of other reasons why someone would want to change their name, including simplifying a difficult to pronounce moniker and trying to escape from an abusive spouse. Is the process of legally changing one’s name difficult? Surprisingly, no, not really.

In the first place, however, you have to have a legitimate reason for changing your name. Or, to be more precise, you have to not have an illegitimate reason for changing your name. Anyone attempting to change their name for any fraudulent purposes, such as attempting to escape massive debts, will run into difficulties. Also, if you try to change your name to Ronald McDonald or Wendy’s Hamburgers you will run into trouble. Unfortunately, this is just another example of how corporations run America and individuals are treated with far less respect. For instance, can anyone give a logical and rational explanation as to why a person doesn’t have the right to change their name to Donald Trump and then go into the real estate business? If “The Donald” was dumb enough to name all those hotels after himself, why should his idiocy restrict some other enterprising young American from cashing in? Isn’t that what free enterprise is all about? Isn’t that what’s so great about capitalism? Yeah, right.

In the same vein, you can’t change your name to Madonna and then try to capitalize somehow off the real pop singer. Heck, even if your name really is Madonna you can’t do that! Capitalism sucks.

Despite that silly little symbol that the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince once supposedly changed his name to, you can’t actually legally change your name to a symbol. Nor can you change it to a number, although if you want to give the impression of belonging to the infamous blue book of original Mayflower settlers you can legally add a Roman numeral to it so as to give yourself a pompous sort of sound.