Surname change?

Nicki93

Hi, I am just wondering how I can go about changing my surname.

I am 21 and have a double barrelled surname. (Mothers first and fathers second)
I want to get rid of my mothers surname and take my fathers. So far my mothers surname is down on everything, school college passport ect.
If I do change my surname will it also change with college? I am currently in second year so I havent gotten my degree yet.

Thanks in advance

goz83

I would guess that it starts with your passport to make it easier. Your birth cert should show both names. It is easier if both names are already on other documents and records, because you can just request that one name be dropped. If not, get your passport changed. Drivers license is an easy change if you have one. Then get it changed at college and on bills and get your bank to change the name too with your passports (old and new) as proof. Only use your fathers name. It will take a while to shake the name, but eventually, it will happen. I feel sorry for people with DB names who have only used one name legally and wish to use the other name legally. Messy. But, good luck

Nicki93

goz83 wrote: »

I would guess that it starts with your passport to make it easier. Your birth cert should show both names. It is easier if both names are already on other documents and records, because you can just request that one name be dropped. If not, get your passport changed. Drivers license is an easy change if you have one. Then get it changed at college and on bills and get your bank to change the name too with your passports (old and new) as proof. Only use your fathers name. It will take a while to shake the name, but eventually, it will happen. I feel sorry for people with DB names who have only used one name legally and wish to use the other name legally. Messy. But, good luck

Thank you, both names are on my birthcert, but my dads one was dropped for convenience when my mother enrolled me for primary school.
I kniw the passport office want proof that you have been using the new name for at least 2 years, but I will try change it with everything else.
Thanks

Victor

Nicki93 wrote: »

If I do change my surname will it also change with college?

You will need to check with the college. I understand many are reluctant. I presume this is because all their paperwork (some of it will be group paperwork, not solo paperwork) to date has been in the other name.

DepartmentT_63

I want to remove the hyphen between my daughters fathers name and mine. I told him I didn't want his surname on her birth certificate but he came to the registry office and threaten me, writing the form for the registrar. I will leave his name on the certificate but not use it if I can remove the hyphen. Does anyone know if this is possible?

Peregrinus

Passport is the most difficult one to change — you have to satisfy them that you are already using your desired name, and have been using it predominantly or exclusively for at least two years. So you change everthing else first — driving licence, utility bills, college registration, whatever — and that gives you a bunch of documentation that you can produce to prove what name you are using.

OP, if you're switching from "Nicki93 Smith Jones" to "Nicki93 Jones" — just dropping the "Smith" — that can usually be done pretty informally. You just tell your GP, your college, your electricity supplier, etc, that "Smith Jones" is not the name you use, and can they please correct it? And they usually will, without fuss. But the passport office are a bit sticky. So you're probably going to need to execute and register a deed poll recording your change of name. Read all about it here and here.

There's no automatic follow-through with a deed poll. Even when you've executed and registered it, it doesn't automatically result in other state agencies, still less other private agencies or people, using your changed name. It's still up to you to go around to all of them telling them about your change of name, producing a copy of the deed poll if they want to see it, and getting them to change their own records and start using your new name. Then, two years later, you should be able to persuade the passport office to issue you a new passport in your new name. (You'll have to pay for a new passport and, as you know, they're not cheap. So if the timing works out you might like to schedule all this so you can replace your passport at a time when you would have had to renew it anyway.)

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123105798#Comment_123105798

Once a surname has been registered it's very difficult to change the registration, except in very specific circumstances which don't apply here. I would think you're best approach is to try to change it on the grounds of error — "We don't use the hyphen. We never have." But, even if they're willing to make a change, they will probably want a joint application from both parents.

But you don't have to change the birth cert to start using a modified or simplified version of the name in practice. If she's registered as "Mary X-Y" you probably won't have any difficulty in registering her with the GP, in school, etc as "Mary Y" and certainly you'll have no difficult in getting people to call her Mary Y. She'll still be Mary X-Y on her passport, though. But people who have double-barrelled surnames using only one of them in practice is extremely common; no-one will raise an eyebrow.

Ezeoul

The hyphen complicates matters. When a double barrelled surname is hyphonated, both barrels must be used for all formal purposes like passport, etc.

With an un-hyphenated double barrel, the person to choose to use both halves, or just one half of the double barrel.

There is another recent thread here on changing a registered surname (on a birth cert) it's actually very difficult and only possible in certain circumstances.

nhg

Check with the Department of Social Protection as your name will have to be changed on your PPSN.

Up to recently with the DSP you had to be able to show proof of 2 years of use of new surname.

I was changing my double barrelled married name back to my maiden name & because we weren’t separated I had to be able to prove 2 years of usage of maiden name.

1st thing I did was to change the name on my bank accounts & as I was starting a new job I only used my new surname in that. That gave me both bank statements & payslips for proof of usage. I then changed my name on my passport & presented that to DSP to get my name changed on my PPSN.