If you're married and haven't changed your name yet, raise your hand!

My hand is up! I got married 4 months ago and have done nothing. I had trouble picking a name, hyphenating or not, and somehow the whole process went by the wayside.

A strange thing happened though. Yesterday I was filling out paperwork where I had to check the Ms. or Mrs. box and I automatically checked Ms. because I wrote my maiden name. Mrs. "maiden name" is my mother.

All at once I felt the urge to become Mrs. Jones (possibly keeping the maiden as another middle name).

So I guess I'll start the process of changing my name. Do you think I need one of those guides to changing your name or can I swing it without one?

I changed my name as soon as we got back from Cabo, well except I'm still have to do my passport. Anyways on to your question, you can totally do it on your own without buying that kit..

As soon as you got back? You overachiever! LOL Good to know I don't need the kit too.

I changed mine as soon as we got back also, so that I could start the school year off as Mrs Hull instead of confusing my kids, good thing I did it right away my school district took forever with it. As far as buying a kit, I don't think its necessary. Start at Soc. Security then DMV and then you can slowly start to change over other things once those two key forms of ID are changed

I did it as soon as we got home too, and I did it on my own. I haven't done my passport yet (we're too poor now to travel any time soon! lol) and still run into random things I forgot to change- reminding myself now to change it at the mortgage company...

Dang am I the only slacker? Thanks for the pointers guys )

Jamy - did you do it legally when you were legally married, and just haven't gone through the process of updating all of the different records you need to update? Or did you not even do it "legally" yet?

I don't know what it takes to do it legally if you didn't do it when you were married - since I've always done it at the time of a marriage or divorce. But it took me years to update everything back to my maiden name when I did get divorced! And I've done most things to my new married name, only because I had a few weeks off of work and had the time - otherwise it would probably take me years again! It's just just a pain.

Just make a list of everything you can think of (credit cards, drivers license/passport, financial institutions, the city, the county, etc.) that have your name - and start working the list!

Oh, and as a side note, I still almost always choose "Ms" - I like that it's generic.

You're not the only slacker! I haven't changed my name yet!! I don't even know if I want to... although having a baby does make me lean towards wanting to change it though.

I think I might to what my friend did. She legally added her DH's last name on to her name. so it's first middle maiden DH-last. So it appears that way on her SS card. But then on her DL, credit cards, etc it just reads first dh-last. So I'm thinking I might do that so I can still keep my maiden name legally, but not have to use a hypenated name on documents and stuff. It'll just be like having two middle names.

But yeah, I'm probably going to wait until after I'm done with school to do that.

Ann, when I got married it did nothing to change my name. I only got my marriage license then had to go to Soc. Sec. to legally change my name and then DMV. I think some states actually change it when you get your license but not in CA.

that's exactly what i did - i have 2 middle names. i knew i didn't want to hyphenate, so that was out. and i also didn't wnat to get rid of my middle name. on most things i am Ann R____ - but on legal things like SS card, driver's license, passport (haven't changed this yet!), etc I will be Ann K___ H___ R___ ... all 4 names!