Quote:
Originally posted by KSigkid
In most states I believe you have to pay to change your name...I think it's more than $100 in most states (I've heard as high as $250).
I'd be very surprised if adults couldn't legally change their name.
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True,
unless it's associated with a marriage or divorce and it's done within a certain time frame (or unless you live in Quebec, apparently). In Massachusetts, for example, each party states on the marriage license application what s/he wants his/her last name to be after the marriage. You pay for the license, but you don't have to then pay a separate fee for a name change. (That's for heterosexual couples. According to the article at the top of this thread, the same is not true for homosexual couples because gay marriage is not recognized on the federal level, so this fellow will now have to go through the courts and pay name-change fees.)
Changing your name, even due to marriage or divorce, is definitely a hassle, but the only fee I ever paid was for the marriage license, which we would have had to pay anyway. No one else (passport agency, social security, credit cards, bank, DMV, utilities, etc) charged me a dime.