Changing legal name

[Lands of Rain]

hey

we're thinking of changing our legal name... basically some of us have issues with our legal name, and none of us really relate to it. most of our friends call us 'rain' and we all answer to that, so mostly we'd just prefer that to be our legal name.

problem is even tho our work/professional person doesn't identify with our legal name... like she has her own name which is different... she wants to be able to continue working under the current legal name because people know it and whatever, so our idea is to ditch our middle name, which is our m*thers name, and then either add rain as a middle name, or else make rain our first name and then the legal first name our middle name and keep the same family name. probably the first will happen.

anyway, we were thinking other peoples here must have thought about this before? has anyone done it.. changed your legal name... how did it work out for you?

sam

[The People]

Thought about it but we relate to the body name and have never had an altar name in place. I like your idea of using rain as your first or middle name. it would be less confusing for people who know the body name as the person you are. a façade yes but I have begun to think that the whole world has a different side and a façade they pull out when necessary.

[nats]

great idea to make rain first or middle. it's super easy to change name here in uk, but not sure about where you are.

[Cammy]

I think for ease of handling keeping your professional name is a good idea, but changing the middle name to Rain will work nice for your emotional health. My dad changed his name completely many years ago and it was not a big deal. It amounted to filling out a form, that you probably can download from your state or provincial government, and then having it notorized or whatever. Then I believe it also involves a visit to a registrar's office and you might need to publish the new name in a newspaper. The real work involves changing your bonafides, like your driver's license, medical plan cards, credit cards and all of that good stuff. My dad's change went quite seamlessly and it didn't cost him a lot of money, which he had little of. He told me that it was the after work (phone company, bills, credit cards, etcetera) was where the real work was.

Best of luck with this. Dad said it was cathartic for him and I hope you have a similar positive reaction.