Maybe this will help?
New York State Domestic Relations Law, Section 15-1-b-1:
"Every person has the right to adopt any name by which he or she wishes to be known simply by using that name consistently and without intent to defraud."
New York State Civil Rights Law, Article 6, Section 65-4:
"Nothing in this article shall be construed to abrogate or alter the common law right of every person, whether married or single, to retain his or her name or to assume a new one so long as the new name is used consistently and without intent to defraud."
What that means is that any citizen of New York State can, at any time, simply change his or her name by act of will. There are a few stipulations: you can't change your name for any fraud-related reason, and once you change your name, you can never go back to your old name.
Don't expect a name change through usage to be easy; the right to do so predates social security cards and birth certificates. Though federal courts have consistently ruled that a name change by usage has exactly the same weight as a court-ordered one, in today's documentation-based society, changing a name by the commonly known methods is complicated enough; add on to that the fact that almost no one knows that the change-by-usage option is out there, and you've got quite the challenge.
Enjoy!
Izz
