One of the things I want to talk to you today about is the subject of name changes in a West Virginia divorce. One of the questions I get some times is, “How do I go back to my former name, whether it’s my maiden name or otherwise?”. You need to know that the West Virginia court has the authority to change your name back to what it was prior to getting married. This is something that comes up from time to time. Sometimes people don’t want to have their names changed back, sometimes they do. It will really depend on the person as to whether they want to have it changed back.
Sometimes the person doesn’t want to change it back because they want to keep the name the same as it is for their children. Other times people have been married for so long that’s part of their identity. It’s how people know them and for that reason they do not want to change their names back. The other reason a person might not want to change their name back is based on the inconvenience of it all. There could be a lot of things that you have to worry about in the event that you change your name back to what it was before you got married.
Let’s say you’ve been married for 20 years or so, and all your bills are in one name and not the other? Then it can become pretty tricky sometimes to get the name change back in dealing with all of the issues. You’ve got to take it to the companies dealing with like when you are paying your water bill or your gas bill or whatever. All of those bills are associated with one name and not the other and you’re going to have to get a copy of the court order to them so that they can change everything over. That’s one of the issues that you face in the event that you’re going to be changing your name.
Now, it’s fairly simple as to getting your name changed back to what they were prior to the marriage. The number one thing you have to remember is that it needs to be taken care of in the final hearing. If it’s not taken care of in the final hearing or by agreement in the stipulated order, then it can be very tricky at that point. A lot of times the judges will not even allow you to go back and actually change your name in the divorce proceeding. If this does happen, this means you’d have to file an entirely new action in the court to get your name change.
It’s certainly possible to get your name changed after the divorce proceeding is over, but it’s just a matter of convenience to get it done at the same time. Now, at the end of the day, what you’ll have is you will have a court order that changes your name from what it was prior to the divorce to what it’s going to be going forward. That’s what you’ll have in hand, is that you’ll have a court order that lays it all out. What you can do is you can take that document to, for example, the social security administration and other entities to show them that you have a court order that legally changes your name from what it was prior to divorce, back to what it was before you got married. These are some of the things to be prepared for when it comes to name changes and your West Virginia divorce.
