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From: smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.women
Subject: Re: Name Changes
Message-ID: <1075@ulysses.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Aug-85 10:56:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: ulysses.1075
Posted: Fri Aug 30 10:56:38 1985
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> I changed my name "by common usage" about ten years ago.  Meaning
> that I have no official document stating that I paid $ to a court
> to do it; I simply starting using "Moira Mallison" exclusively.
> I had no particular problems with SSA.  I think all that was required
> was a notarized document that I didn't intend fraud, and that I 
> was going to use the new name exclusively.   

This doesn't always work.  Several years ago, a friend of mine decided to
regain her original name -- at the time she was married (1968), retaining
one's name was unheard of.  The laws of North Carolina allowed one to change
one's name either by court order, or by the common law procedure of simply
using the new name.  Since the formal mechanism could, by statute, only be
used once in a lifetime, and since there seemed to be little advantage to
it, she elected to use the other procedure.  She had no problem except with
the driver's license folks; she waited six months and asked again, and they
changed their records with no further questions.

About two years later, she moved to conservative area of Virginia (Lynchburg,
I believe), and tried to register to vote.  The dialog went something like
this:

	Q: Are you married?
	A: Yes.
	Q: Is that your husband's last name?
	A: No.
	Q: Do you have a court order?
	A: No.
	Q: Then we can't allow you to register.

The local D.A., apart from intimating that she must be an immoral commie,
threatened to prosecute her for attempted election fraud.  My friend im-
mediately contacted an ACLU attorney; he advised her that while there was
no danger of criminal prosecution (and indeed no charges were ever filed),
she would be unlikely to win a suit against the election board.  After all,
they were not denying her the right to use the name of her choice, merely
insisting that the proper paperwork be used.  So she gave in and asked the
attorney to file the necessary papers for her.  What makes this case especially
unusual, though, is that it's really a case of Virginia not honoring the laws
of North Carolina -- my friend had legally changed her name in accordance
with the laws of the state where she resided at the time.