How to Change your Name After Marriage
After all of the fun and excitement of planning and experiencing your wedding, comes the time-consuming task of changing your name. Many new brides say they feel nervous about the name change process, but it is actually a quite straight forward process. It’s just a bit time consuming and it helps if you know where to start, and have a plan.
If changing your name is something that you want to do, there are a few options for you to choose from:
* Take on your husband’s last name.
* Hyphenate your last names (ie Smith-Jones), which approximately 5% of brides do.
* Double barrel your names (ie Smith Jones).
* Turn your maiden name into a new middle name and take on your husband’s name as your last name.
* Make up a new last name that is a combination of your maiden name and married name.
* Make up a totally new name.
You can start using your new name whenever you like, and you don’t actually have to change your name on any documentation if you don’t want to, this is called ‘name by association’ and is perfectly legal. Quite a few new brides take on their husband’s name in this way – they use their married name in social circles, but keep their maiden name on their official ID documentation. This can get confusing though, which is why most newlyweds choose to change their name on your driver’s license, passport, bank accounts etc, and go about their name change in a more official way.
And here is the good news: if you’re just taking on your husband’s name, this is a very simple process. An Official Marriage Certificate issued by your state or territory’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages is sufficient evidence that you have married and you do not need to go through any application process to change your name. While this will not change your name on your birth certificate / birth record, it will allow you to legally change your name on all of your identification documents. You can start officially changing your name as soon as you are married and have your Official Marriage Certificate.
If you are wanting to change your name in any other way however, you will need to go through the standard name change process.
Name Change Checklist
Below is a short list of 25 places that you will need to change your name. Thank you to the After The Wedding Name Change Kit for permission to reprint this extract from their checklist, which contains another 42 places for you to change your name.
Driver’s licence, Passport, Electoral enrolment, Australian Taxation Office (ATO), Medicare,, Council (for rates if you own a property), Centrelink (if receiving benefits), Bond authority (for renters), Utilities, Phone, Bank accounts, Home loan / personal loans, Store accounts (eg Myer card), Home / contents insurance, Doctor, Ambulance membership, Your employer (HR / payroll), Superannuation funds, Union membership, Gym membership, Loyalty programs (eg FlyBuys, Myer One), Video libraries, Your will, Accountant, Tollway accounts (e.g Citylink)