If you changed your name when you got married, you may have considered changing your name back after your divorce. That is a highly personal issue.
Many women, especially those with children or those whose marriages lasted a long time or have established careers in their married names, choose to keep their married names. Others decide that they want no part of their ex or his name and change their name.
Whatever you choose to do, it’s critical that you decide before your divorce is final. If you choose to change your name, that information needs to be in your divorce decree.
With the signed decree in place, you can change your driver’s license, passport, Social Security card, etc. However, if you wait until after the divorce decree is finalized and then decide you wish to change your name, the process becomes more difficult and expensive.
At that point, you have two options. You can either go back to court to have your divorce decree modified, or you can choose to do a legal name change.
Most people choose to do a legal name change. A name change involves court fees, a waiting period, and typically a court hearing. On the other hand, if your divorce decree needs to be modified for another reason anyway, you may choose to simply place that language in the modified decree.