The costs associated with changing your name legally are wide in variety and depend on the avenue that you choose.

If you choose just to assume a name, the costs are limited to only the charges you will incur from businesses, credit card companies, etc., to change your name on their accounts and have new cards issued to you.

If you choose to legally change your name with a court document, the costs rise a bit, however they too also depend on the avenue you choose.

If you plan to fill out the court order documentation yourself, you can change your name for the cost of filing paperwork with your local court, which can be as little as one hundred dollars.

However, if you change your name using an attorney, you can expect the bill to be higher, usually around a thousand dollars for all their work.

On top of the costs to change your name legally with the courts and / or with a lawyer, you will also have the costs of changing all of your documentation. The documentation you will need to consider changing include:

Your driver’s license Your credit card accounts Your bank accounts Your Social Security Number and Card Your Birth Certificate Any of your ‘point cards’ from stores Your accounts at stores Your online accounts Internet usernames Internet sign up information Your business cards And more.

Many of the documents that you will need to have changed will incur a fee for you as well. You may also have to pay for a certified copy of your legal name change certificate or marriage certificate to prove that your name has legally been changed. Many states, as well as businesses, require that you have certified copies of your name change documentation in order to change your name with them.

Don’t forget that there are legal restrictions to what your name can be, as well, you may want to consider the length of your new name as well. In some instances, if your name is too long, it will not fit on your credit card or even your driver’s license. Many women and men are hyphenating their last names to reflect a new family unit. However if both last names are 15 letters long that can total 33 spaces on a card, not including your first name, and if your first name is exceptionally long, you may want to consider revising your name choice. The basic restrictions on name changes are:

You may not legally change your name for fraud in order to get away with something or do something illegal. You can’t change your name to interfere with the rights of other people. You can not change your name to one that would be deliberately confusing, such as punctuation or a number. You can not change your name to one that is a racial slur. You can’t change your name to anything that could be measured as a fighting word or profane word.