Name change annoyance

mikenberger

I took my husbands last name. But instead of dropping my maiden name, I kept it and moved it to my middle name and dropped my middle name all together. So my married name is First Name Maiden Name Husbands Last Name.

Not difficult, right?

WRONG WRONG MOTHERFUCKING WRONG.

My drivers license was wrong, but I managed to catch that before it went to print. So when I went to change my name with the social security office, I filled out an application, (including tracking down my parents SSN) and waited in line for nearly three years (okay. 75 mins.) and then submitted it with my marriage license to prove my name change. Guy breezed through it, said it would take about 6 business days and congratulations on getting married.

I get my new card today.... Yeah. Doesn't have my correct name on it. Has my former middle name and my married last name. Fucking Hell. You've got to be kidding me. This is NOT this difficult. What happens to brides or grooms that totally change their name all together and really complicates things? Damn. I do not want to go and sit in that line again:( Wah.

MadHops21

That really sucks Sorry to hear about the lines and annoyance.

People at my work tell me stories about how someone has a similar maiden name, and after the last name change, the emails go to the wrong person because people don't know about the name change. It happens more often than I thought it did, so I'm expecting annoyance with name change for the first year. 

Can you at least expedite the new-new card since it's their fault? 

novella1186

Bleh. I'm sorry, that's super annoying.

I had to get a new SS card a few years ago because my dog had an obsession with paper and actually ate my old card. I went in, filled everything out, and they sent my new card with my middle name spelled wrong. My middle name is a super common name with super common spelling, and they changed it to a less common spelling, even though I wrote it out for them correctly. Ugh. I called and asked if I would run into issues with my middle name being spelled wrong on the card and they said yes, and that I had better come back and do the process again to fix it. Fun.

I think they just don't have their shit together sometimes.

momofbride530

It would be a lot easier if there was a way to do all of this online! I hate waiting in line for hours and then the information being wrong!

madamerwin

I'm doing what you did with moving my maiden to my middle, and dropping my current middle name. My maiden name is super uncommon as a last name, but kind of common for an old woman's first name (but spelled differently). NO ONE ever spells my last name correctly. It never occurred to me that the SS office or DMV could spell it wrong, but now I'm worried about that!

Side note, is there some way to avoid having to GO to all the places to deal with a name change? I wish I had an identical twin I could pay to do it for me. I hate lines and bureaucracy. 

25 days to go to my wedding, and I find that everything gives me a panic attack. I need wine.

novella1186

tfmrserwin said:

I'm doing what you did with moving my maiden to my middle, and dropping my current middle name. My maiden name is super uncommon as a last name, but kind of common for an old woman's first name (but spelled differently). NO ONE ever spells my last name correctly. It never occurred to me that the SS office or DMV could spell it wrong, but now I'm worried about that!

Side note, is there some way to avoid having to GO to all the places to deal with a name change? I wish I had an identical twin I could pay to do it for me. I hate lines and bureaucracy. 

25 days to go to my wedding, and I find that everything gives me a panic attack. I need wine.

---------------box?--------------------------------------

You don't have to GO to the SS office; you can mail everything in. The scary thing is that you have to mail all originals. No copies. But they'll send it all back to you.

Our nearest SS office is a damn hour away from my house and they close at 4, so I'd have to miss a few hours of work to be able to go in person. I'm choosing to mail the stuff in, but I'm a little worried that my marriage license could get lost in the mail :S

I think DMVs vary by state, but in my state you're required to go in person. Passports can be done via mail. Those are the only three things I've looked into. No idea about bank accounts and stuff.

JennyColada

Omg, I did the same thing and had the SAME issues. DO PEOPLE NOT READ. All they have to do is follow what I wrote, but no, they have to make guesses about what they THINK my name is.

UGH.

loveislouder

Not quite the same issue here but it has to do with name changing - in order to change my name I have to get my marriage certificate. I threw the application in the mail e day after the wedding, and they date stamped it 3 days later. It got returned to me YESTERDAY (a whole month later) rejected because H forgot to sign it. I'm too impatient to wait an outh so I paid the extra money to have it expedited so I can start the process in 3-5 business days.

mj8215

Ugh sorry this sounds really annoying! Not to thread jack but I was wondering - if I want to take my fiance's name do I have to do it "then and there" at the time of the wedding? Or can I do it later (like, a few months after we get married, when I actually have time to deal with this stuff...). Its a bit complicated in my case because I'm not a US citizen and all my visa documentation is in my name and my annual visit to the US embassy in my home country for the purposes of visa extension pretty much coincides with my wedding... 

anyways - any reason to not push off name change until a few months in? 

julieanne912

mj8215 said:

Ugh sorry this sounds really annoying! Not to thread jack but I was wondering - if I want to take my fiance's name do I have to do it "then and there" at the time of the wedding? Or can I do it later (like, a few months after we get married, when I actually have time to deal with this stuff...). Its a bit complicated in my case because I'm not a US citizen and all my visa documentation is in my name and my annual visit to the US embassy in my home country for the purposes of visa extension pretty much coincides with my wedding... 

anyways - any reason to not push off name change until a few months in? 

You can officially change it whenever you want.  I've had friends go as long as a year before changing it legally.  

May14TXbride

I feel your pain. I got married almost a year ago (this Sunday is our anniversary!), and I did the same...legally dropped my middle name and moved my maiden name to my middle.

I changed my name within a few weeks with the SS office and DMV, but it was about 6 months later before I updated my bank account. Of course at the time, I brought in my new ID, SS card, and marriage license. They changed it without a problem. Now I just got a call from them wanting me to bring in copy of my marriage license. I guess now they want to keep one one file??

mikenberger

Yeah, I've changed my bank account, credit cards, license etc with no issues. Now it's the federal government that's a pain in my ass. And I just looked up today and to update my Passport with my new name is going to cost $110! Ughhhhhh. So lame.

novella1186

julieanne912 said:

mj8215 said:

Ugh sorry this sounds really annoying! Not to thread jack but I was wondering - if I want to take my fiance's name do I have to do it "then and there" at the time of the wedding? Or can I do it later (like, a few months after we get married, when I actually have time to deal with this stuff...). Its a bit complicated in my case because I'm not a US citizen and all my visa documentation is in my name and my annual visit to the US embassy in my home country for the purposes of visa extension pretty much coincides with my wedding... 

anyways - any reason to not push off name change until a few months in? 

You can officially change it whenever you want.  I've had friends go as long as a year before changing it legally.  

Yeah it's just a legal name change. If I wasn't married but felt like changing my name for whatever reason, I could do it any time. I believe after two years you'll need to provide the social security administration some kind of extra proof or statement or something (in the case of changing to your married name) but that's about it. 

beachyone15

mikenberger said:

Yeah, I've changed my bank account, credit cards, license etc with no issues. Now it's the federal government that's a pain in my ass. And I just looked up today and to update my Passport with my new name is going to cost $110! Ughhhhhh. So lame.

Same here! It took me 6 months to change everything and that is the last thing on my list.

mikenberger

beachyone15 said:

mikenberger said:

Yeah, I've changed my bank account, credit cards, license etc with no issues. Now it's the federal government that's a pain in my ass. And I just looked up today and to update my Passport with my new name is going to cost $110! Ughhhhhh. So lame.

Same here! It took me 6 months to change everything and that is the last thing on my list.

Yeah. Not looking forward to it, but I should probably do it considering I'll be leaving the country in February.

sheknows6

Has anyone here ever used the name change service instead of doing it all yourself? That's what I was considering.

mikenberger

sheknows6 said:

Has anyone here ever used the name change service instead of doing it all yourself? That's what I was considering.

It was too expensive for me. I live in a relatively small town (40k people) and getting my stuff changed took all of a day. Granted it was a whole day and lots of driving around, hurry up and waiting, but it was overall, an easy process. So far, changing my name has been free.

beachyone15

sheknows6 said:

Has anyone here ever used the name change service instead of doing it all yourself? That's what I was considering.

I'd never pay for something like that. Changing your name can definitely be time-consuming, but it's not hard. Not worth the money IMO.

cupcait927

Funny this thread should come up - last night I got home to find an envelope from the DMV - my registration needs to be renewed. Great. Go online, attempt to renew it, only to find out that my last name is still my maiden name on my car registration. Good to know that all the time and money I spent at the DMV only changed it on my license, not my registration as well - nobody mentioned that either while I was there. So now I have to take more time to physically go to the DMV and renew my registration and change my name on that as well. Everything else was relatively easy, except for my job - they made it a giant pain in the ass. 

thisismynickname2

I think the annoying part of name changing is the inconsistency. My gym took my word for it (yay!), my bank took my new driver's license (yay!), work took my marriage certificate (sigh), and one of my airline accounts took my DL and the other wanted my marriage certificate. 

I haven't gotten around to changing all my accounts, just the stuff I use most often. I kept forgetting to change my OpenTable account so we'd show up to reservations and they won't have me on file. Then they'd look at me like I was crazy for not knowing what name I'd used. 

I also get double mail from charities. Like, DH and I donated to public television and now Nickname MaidenName gets solicitations, as does Mr. and Mrs. MarriedName, at the exact same time. 

Edit: words = hard

novella1186

cupcait927 said:

Funny this thread should come up - last night I got home to find an envelope from the DMV - my registration needs to be renewed. Great. Go online, attempt to renew it, only to find out that my last name is still my maiden name on my car registration. Good to know that all the time and money I spent at the DMV only changed it on my license, not my registration as well - nobody mentioned that either while I was there. So now I have to take more time to physically go to the DMV and renew my registration and change my name on that as well. Everything else was relatively easy, except for my job - they made it a giant pain in the ass. 

Damn I hadn't even thought about my car registration. Thank you! So many damn things to change! 

redheadbride15

momofbride530 said:

It would be a lot easier if there was a way to do all of this online! I hate waiting in line for hours and then the information being wrong!

I felt this way when we went to go get our marriage license. The process is so insanely inefficient - FI and I go into a room and fill out a big form, then we wait in a long line and give it to the clerk, who copies word-for-word what is hand-written in our form into a computer. Then she prints out a "draft" for us to review, which is of course riddled with errors. We correct the errors with a pen, wait again while she re-types things, get another draft, which still has one or too errors in it, etc. The whole thing takes an hour. But would anyone think to create a website where the couple could go online beforehand and fill in the giant form themselves and then only go to the clerk's office for 5 minutes just to show ID and pay the fee? No, that would be too logical! And isn't waiting in at least one really long line an important rite of passage of marriage?

novella1186

redheadbride15 said:

momofbride530 said:

It would be a lot easier if there was a way to do all of this online! I hate waiting in line for hours and then the information being wrong!

I felt this way when we went to go get our marriage license. The process is so insanely inefficient - FI and I go into a room and fill out a big form, then we wait in a long line and give it to the clerk, who copies word-for-word what is hand-written in our form into a computer. Then she prints out a "draft" for us to review, which is of course riddled with errors. We correct the errors with a pen, wait again while she re-types things, get another draft, which still has one or too errors in it, etc. The whole thing takes an hour. But would anyone think to create a website where the couple could go online beforehand and fill in the giant form themselves and then only go to the clerk's office for 5 minutes just to show ID and pay the fee? No, that would be too logical! And isn't waiting in at least one really long line an important rite of passage of marriage?

Our county clerk's office had a website where we filled out the form online... then we were required to print that form and take it into the county clerk's office... and they used the hard copy to input everything into the computer and do the whole process that you described above lol. Moving in the right direction, just not quite there yet. 

mikenberger

Our marriage license process was a breeze. Print off this form, take it in along with a "disinterested party" (our best man) and then we all swear and demonstrate that we are who we say we are and 3 days later, the license was ready for pick up. Only took like 15mins. Took longer to actually get to the courthouse than go through the motions.

anjemon

Ugh. Name change. I took last half of last Friday off and went to the SS office to change my name on my card. I waited an hour for my number to be called. I get to the window only to find that my marriage certificate is WRONG.

Apparently when the guy at the service center typed our information into the computer he used my maiden lastname as my married lastname. So basically it says I decided not to change my name. The guy at the SS office refused to change my name without the corrected certificate, even though I had signed as Newlastname when I signed.

So I went back to the service center, they gave me a number to call. The lady at the number had to call the service center and verify that they made the mistake and I had filled out my application correctly. Fortunately they made the mistake and not me, so they're sending us an amended certificate sometime this week (possibly today). And then I get to go back to the SS office and do the whole ordeal again. FFS.

Sorry for the long rant, I've only attempted one part of the name change process and it's already super sucked. Also, I'm annoyed I didn't catch the mistake. But since Maidenname was already on the certificate in another location, I didn't even question it. It's not like they spelled it wrong. I would have noticed that. Sigh.

sheknows6

mikenberger said:

sheknows6 said:

Has anyone here ever used the name change service instead of doing it all yourself? That's what I was considering.

It was too expensive for me. I live in a relatively small town (40k people) and getting my stuff changed took all of a day. Granted it was a whole day and lots of driving around, hurry up and waiting, but it was overall, an easy process. So far, changing my name has been free.

Understood! The services I saw were around $50 I believe and for me, that's well worth the time and money saved being able to go back to work instead. I would love to be in a smaller town where I could get it all done in a day, seriously that would be amazeballs.

Between the lines and traffic alone it can take a whole day to visit three different buildings. Talk about annoying.

twoleighs

sheknows6 said:

mikenberger said:

sheknows6 said:

Has anyone here ever used the name change service instead of doing it all yourself? That's what I was considering.

It was too expensive for me. I live in a relatively small town (40k people) and getting my stuff changed took all of a day. Granted it was a whole day and lots of driving around, hurry up and waiting, but it was overall, an easy process. So far, changing my name has been free.

Understood! The services I saw were around $50 I believe and for me, that's well worth the time and money saved being able to go back to work instead. I would love to be in a smaller town where I could get it all done in a day, seriously that would be amazeballs.

Between the lines and traffic alone it can take a whole day to visit three different buildings. Talk about annoying.

The way I understood the services was they fill out all the forms, but you still have to take care of them.  Here (TN) you have to go to the DMV in person, you can't mail anything in.  So I guess it depends on what you'd still need to do yourself to determine if it's worth it.  

I live in a large city and I took 1 day off: hit the SS office, DMV, bank, and County Clerk (for title and car registration).  Everything else I can do via e-mail/phone/online.  By far the longest was the DMV (2 hours).  Guy said it was because school was out and so all the teenagers were getting permits/licenses.  I started at 8 and got home at 4.  

Also, at the SS office, they printed out a "receipt" and had me proof my name and address.  I don't know if that policy varies by office though.  

ETF: clarity

sheknows6

twoleighs said:

sheknows6 said:

mikenberger said:

sheknows6 said:

Has anyone here ever used the name change service instead of doing it all yourself? That's what I was considering.

It was too expensive for me. I live in a relatively small town (40k people) and getting my stuff changed took all of a day. Granted it was a whole day and lots of driving around, hurry up and waiting, but it was overall, an easy process. So far, changing my name has been free.

Understood! The services I saw were around $50 I believe and for me, that's well worth the time and money saved being able to go back to work instead. I would love to be in a smaller town where I could get it all done in a day, seriously that would be amazeballs.

Between the lines and traffic alone it can take a whole day to visit three different buildings. Talk about annoying.

The way I understood the services was they fill out all the forms, but you still have to take care of them.  Here (TN) you have to go to the DMV in person, you can't mail anything in.  So I guess it depends on what you'd still need to do yourself to determine if it's worth it.  

I live in a large city and I took 1 day off: hit the SS office, DMV, bank, and County Clerk (for title and car registration).  Everything else I can do via e-mail/phone/online.  By far the longest was the DMV (2 hours).  Guy said it was because school was out and so all the teenagers were getting permits/licenses.  I started at 8 and got home at 4.  

Also, at the SS office, they printed out a "receipt" and had me proof my name and address.  I don't know if that policy varies by office though.  

ETF: clarity

Well if they don't mail them in for me then it's def not worth it. I'll just take another day off then.

twoleighs

sheknows6 said:

twoleighs said:

sheknows6 said:

mikenberger said:

sheknows6 said:

Has anyone here ever used the name change service instead of doing it all yourself? That's what I was considering.

It was too expensive for me. I live in a relatively small town (40k people) and getting my stuff changed took all of a day. Granted it was a whole day and lots of driving around, hurry up and waiting, but it was overall, an easy process. So far, changing my name has been free.

Understood! The services I saw were around $50 I believe and for me, that's well worth the time and money saved being able to go back to work instead. I would love to be in a smaller town where I could get it all done in a day, seriously that would be amazeballs.

Between the lines and traffic alone it can take a whole day to visit three different buildings. Talk about annoying.

The way I understood the services was they fill out all the forms, but you still have to take care of them.  Here (TN) you have to go to the DMV in person, you can't mail anything in.  So I guess it depends on what you'd still need to do yourself to determine if it's worth it.  

I live in a large city and I took 1 day off: hit the SS office, DMV, bank, and County Clerk (for title and car registration).  Everything else I can do via e-mail/phone/online.  By far the longest was the DMV (2 hours).  Guy said it was because school was out and so all the teenagers were getting permits/licenses.  I started at 8 and got home at 4.  

Also, at the SS office, they printed out a "receipt" and had me proof my name and address.  I don't know if that policy varies by office though.  

ETF: clarity

-----------------------

Well if they don't mail them in for me then it's def not worth it. I'll just take another day off then.

The one I looked at was through the Wedding Club (found through Shane Co).  

It says:

Once you have proofread your forms, you can click to print each form and its detailed filing instruction sheet. The instruction sheet includes the order of form submission, fees, required filing documents, office locations/addresses, as well as insider tips on easy filing.

The one linked through TK says:

Mail the documents in the pre-addressed and stamped envelopes provided by HitchSwitch!

So that's why I decided to do mine myself.  That and it says you can mail the DMV one too, but the TN website clearly states those have to be done in person so I'm not sure how that would be handled.