Using Your New Name Before It's Legally Changed?

A lot of states require you to start using it before it is legally changed, so don't feel bad. It is kind of a weird grey area, because you have to use your old name any time you use an ID. But as long as you are open to the right people, your name is not too difficult a thing to get on some legal records. I came out to my landlord, and notified the post office, so most of my mail comes in my new name. I got a new email account and started forwarding form my old one to there. That was the big change that made everything else fall in to place, since I send mail as my new name, and so much these days is tied to your email. The only thing outside of ids themselves that I have to wait on really is bank and credit cards.

My state requires both a federal and state background investigation. I filed my federal one fo re ver ago. It might be a good idea to see if yours has the same requirements. If it does you really should take care of that whenever you can. They recommend getting extra fingerprint sets and waiting till you get the federal one done to do the state one, since both have to be within 60 days and the state one is way faster.

 

My mother uses a different name to her legal one, and she has for years.

She just puts her real name on legal things/paperwork/forms etc.

 

For most things, you can use whatever name you want. In the past, I've even seen recommendations to use variants of your name for privacy reasons, or to help discover what company didn't follow the privacy agreements. Usually the recommendation was a different spelling or middle initial. On a technical standpoint, one doesn't truly NEED a legal name change, but it often makes the process much much easier for getting things like a driver's license, Social Security Number/card, bank account... updated.

 

If it's not under the government, you can use your new name. That's it. This is valid for internet sites, non-governmental agencies, you yearbook at school and how people refer to you (including people from the government). You have to have your legal name on official documents, but that doesn't mean the government officials are obligated to refer you by it.

Take that from someone who struggled to have his name accepted at school and who finally legally changed his name.

Edit: Also, be cautious, some people will try to invalidate what I just said as untrue, but I assure you that it is. I've been through that and I've been lied to by people who should have protected me.

 

Exactly. Even if I've got someone at my counter who has to show me their ID for something official, and their ID says "Joseph Smith", but they want me to call them Shannon, I would. Also, I'm a volunteer examineer for amateur radio licenses. One of our other examiners official name is David, but everyone calls him Rod. Was confusing the first time I saw him on the sign in sheet for an exam session...

 

Yep, you can use your new name anywhere where it is not official. Even in those places though, I would check because sometimes they have systems for nicknames that they can use for your new name. At my workplace, they used this system before I had my name legally changed. So, my nametag and my schedule both said Brad, but in the official systems I was still my legal name.

 

Wow, this thread is exactly something that I've been wondering about. Thanks, y'all.

 

Yeah, I still have yet to legally change my name but other than government or financial business, I use my preferred name on everything.

In fact, I work from home as a freelance writer. And if you're a PayPal user, like me, you can actually opt to use a business name which will be the name displayed in all transactions. This way, while I had to sign up with my legal name, it allowed me to feel a little more at ease using PayPal as one of my main payment methods.

 

I've used my prefer name at work, and didn't have a problem with my birth name since we were all paid under the table, same goes for therapy since I worked with a sliding scale. Sadly, everything else is under my current legal name.