My name situation is killing me at work so I'm trying to find the quickest route. Has anyone ever filed with legal zoom? How does it work? Will I still have to go to court or will they file everything for me? Thanks everyone!!

99% of the time, you can do it yourself cheaply and easily. No need for legal zoom or anything else. Just go to the courthouse, talk to the clerk of courts in your local county, and ask for name change information. They will tell you what you need step by step and all the costs. They will even provide the blank documents you need to fill out and file.

I'm filing the name change in California but I live in Colorado.

You do not need to use an online pay website to get your court forms.  They charge you money just for the luxury of electronically filling the forms out with the information you provided.  All the forms are available from your local courts and if they have a website on there as well.  The forms even come with directions so its not hard for you to do yourself.  When filing the forms at your local court house they will even tell you how many copies you need and what all is required.

You do the name change in the county you live in.  After you have the court order you can go to your birth state to change your birth cert if they allow it.

Quick question on name changes.....

Say you are a parent, either MTF or FTM. Do you go about changing your name on your child's birth certificate? Or do you simply keep documentation that it was indeed your old name?

Thanks!

As far as I know you'd have to change it being you must notify all legal entities of the change. Might depend on what country/state you live in however.

I mean....do you go back and have it changed on those.....my daughter is 2....

My understanding is that you can but it may be a battle. You don't have to, I didn't, but my children are older and it really makes no difference in their lives that I have heard of.

Quote from: Aus76 on August 29, 2014, 02:35:36 PM
I mean....do you go back and have it changed on those.....my daughter is 2....

She will probably ask about it someday if she didn't know you changed it ever.

Ah. But no real issues from that? What about

-mortgages,
-marriage licenses,
and other stuff that isn't instantly or soon after affected by changing it with SSA?

What do your children need a birth cert for when it comes to mortgages? As to marriage licenses for them, it makes no difference whatsoever.

What other stuff,  mine joined the military, got jobs, had kids all life stuff without any hassle whatsoever.

For the OP here is a link that has everything in pdf that needs to be done in colorado for adult name change

http://www.courts.state.co.us/Forms/Forms_List.cfm?Form_Type_ID=25

In Missouri, Legal name change paperwork is available for direct download for free, from the state court system. Self representation is more than accepted, using the standard state forms. Too bad that doesn't extend to the rarer case of gender change court cases.

Ok so they just fill the forms for you. Yea I'm not paying for that. I got all the Colorado forms filled out. I'm gonna go to the police station this weekend to get fingerprinted to start the process. Also, I'm gonna go ahead and apply for a Colorado drivers license and change everything here. Hopefully I'll have everything done by my birthday this December. Thanks everyone!

Good luck with it happening speedily. The wait only seems like forever. Feels really good when you are done though.