In a word, yes but as you may well know there are always some restrictions put in place by statute and case law. The general restrictions that are put in place are as follows:

You cannot have a name that infringes anyone else’s civil rights for personal gain or with the intention of misleading for example you want to legally change your name to Brad Pitt. Unless you have a very good reason for changing your name to a famous actor the court will not approve of this particular name change.

Fraudulent purposes is the main reason courts scrutinize the reasons as to why you are changing your name. It is illegal to change your name for the purposes of evading debts, taxes or to avoid capture for any criminal activities or lawsuits.

You cannot have a name that incites violence, racial slurs, and obscene or threatening words.

Your new name must not contain numbers, symbols or punctuation for example, 5, !, or even roman numerals IV.

Other than the above restriction you can choose any name you wish. Legally Change Your Name now.

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Other than for fraudulent purposes you can change your name at any point in your life, the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution allows you to change your name. You may choose one of several forms to deal with the name change, the most common is “at will”. State laws can still regulate name changes at will but are unable to forbid it. Changing your name at will is; “what it says on the tin” you wake up one morning and decide you now want to be called Mary Poppins.

It was a ruling in court that substantiated that a name change at will has the same legal clout as a court decreeing the name change. Again as long as there is no fraudulent intention.

Of course there are some restrictions when choosing your new name, you must not have racial slur, obscenities, threats or names inciting violence. Names cannot be changed to those that will cause confusion to the public for example changing your name to Ronald McDonald and opening a hamburger house. In this case, not only does it mislead the public but it also infringes trademark rights.

When applying for a name change, the name cannot contain numbers or symbols for it to be granted and neither can be the same as a famous person in order to capitalize from their name. So, unfortunately Prince cannot use his symbol as an actual name.

Some states allow the individual to change their names by usage only. You must use your new name in all aspects of your life, employment, business, and social security, personal. How do you establish when you started using the name? Well that is a real problem for this easy method changing your name. Inevitably, sometime in the future you are asked to confirm when you started using your new name. This can prove to be very difficult, there is no paper trail.

It is much more efficient and stress free to obtain an order from court for the name change. The courts have the authority to request an explanation for the name change and if the judge does not like what he hears he has the discretion to deny a name change, based on the reasons given or that the reason is frivolous or trivia.

A common reason people change their name is that is to hard to pronunciation or spell and this reason is given when foreign nationals are applying for naturalization, they are given an option to change their name free of charge adopting a more “user-friendly” name.

You can have an assumed name, which is a name that you use instead of your legal name, either businesses, which have a “Doing As Business” name or authors who write under and pseudonym commonly use this. You may register this assumed name with a government agency, usually secretary of state.

Deciding on a new name and applying for it is a simple process, but it’s everything else that takes time and effort. You must change notify the main government agencies that you have changed your name. The most important I believe is the social security, have your court papers to deal with this matter is essential and safes a lot of time and effort, and another reason why applying through court is the easier option.

It is possible to carry out the name change yourself even though there is a fair bit of paperwork involved. It just requires patience and a bit of thought. Alternatively why don’t you get rid of the headache and click here to Legally Change Your Name
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