California Divorce And Changing Your Last Name To Former Name

Today, we’re talking about should you change your name if you’re a woman after you get divorced.

So when you’re going through a divorce in California one of the things you’ll have to consider as part of the divorce as part of the paperwork is if you’re going to change your name back to your former name or your maiden name at the end of your divorce.

So this is question that every spouse, every wife, every woman rather needs to think about. And it’s one that most don’t take likely.

I will bring it up but we don’t make people make a decision right through on the spot. We let them know.

It is a decision they will need to make one way or the other going through the divorce process in California.

So some of the things–I just want to share with you some of the things that people tell me that the women tell me their consideration of changing their name.

Number one is if they have young children, their concern is they don’t want to have a different last name than the names of their children for reasons of going to school and things like that.

They want to keep their last name same as their children if they’re in school. And I think it’s one of the biggest factors.

I hear that a lot for women saying, “You know, I want my name to be the same as my children when we go to school.”

Number two when there are long term marriages, we’re talking 20-30 years. Those women tend to keep the same name the married name because the entire world has known them as that last name for so long.

And it would be–they tell me almost awkward for them to go back to a maiden name they haven’t used in so many years. So that’s number two.

Then the folks in the middle, so, those are fairly easy decisions. If you still have young children you want to have the same name that seems to be reasonable.

If you have the name for a long time, it seems reasonable that you’d want to keep it. But what if you’re in the middle?

What if you have no children and you have a 15 year marriage, 10 year marriage something like that. You’ve had the name a long time but not 30 years.

Do you keep the name or do you want to move on?

Some of the women have told me that they want to go back to their maiden name even though they’ve had the name for so long.

More of a freedom thing, more of we’re divorced, why would I want to keep this last name attached to me as a constant reminder of being married I supposed.

So there really is no right or wrong answer when it comes to filing your divorce papers in California. It is one of the check boxes to determine if you’re going to go back to your former name.

You can put it on the judgment, on the final agreement that you want to go back, just so you have the court order saying the judges agreed to your request to go back to your former name.

You can do that. And then you don’t have to right away go and change your name.

But you would have an order if you later change your minds to go back to your former name.

Now just because you put it on the court documents and the judge agrees signs off that you can go back to your former name, you still have to do it legally.

You’d have to change it with Social Security Administration and with the California Department Motor Vehicles. You’d still have to do that.

So to make things easier if you’re not sure, you can always request to have your former name.

And if you decide later not to change it, you’re not going to be forced to do it because you’d have to take a pro-active step in going and changing the name back to your former name.

So this is just a little bit free to think about, if you’re going to go through divorce or you’re in the middle of getting divorce in California.

These are kind of I just want to share with you what our clients kind of share with us in making their decision to keep their last name or not.