California Divorce : Should You Ask To Restore Your Former Maiden Name?

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. In this video we’re talking to the wives in deciding wither or not they should change their maiden name, or back to their maiden name rather or restore your former name as it states on the petition.

So I’ll tell you what the rationale is here and I’m going to explain to you why you may want to state that you want to restore your former name even though you may not want to do it right away. So number 1 is this is your opportunity to have your maiden name restored without going to court as name change to change it back. You’ll have a court order as part of the dissolution, the divorce to have your former name restored.

So what I tell my client is if you even 1 percent chance think you may want to go back to your maiden name then ask for it to be restored in the judgment. Just because you get court order as part of the divorce and have your former name restored doesn’t mean you have to go out and do it right away.

You’ll have a judgment that maybe 10, 15, 20 years down the road you want to have your former name restored, you can just pull out a copy of your judgment for the social security, DMV and it’s a done deal. Otherwise if you don’t ask for it then you’re going to have to go file a petition with the court for a name change and go to court and go through that entire process.

So I always recommend to our clients that unless you know absolutely you never want back you should at least put it on the judgment as part of the divorce so you have it down the road. I know there’s reasons why people don’t want to change their names back because they’re still young and want to have the same name, you don’t want to change it because you are a professional in an industry. Maybe you are a doctor or lawyer, or you, you know, some medical field, teacher perhaps and you’re known by a certain name. You don’t want to change it but maybe you want to have that ability to change it at a later date.

So I just want to give the wives out there some thought on wither or not you should put request for your former name to be restored. Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Hope you’re having a great day. I’ll talk to you soon.