Does changing your last name make sense when you’re not that name?

Comments

• DrBob@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Why does anyone care? The only issue I could see is if you want to change your name to “Tom Cruise” or “Elon Musk” for the purpose of perpetrating fraud. Otherwise who cares? That’s the whole point of being able to change your name.

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• TheFogan@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I’m missing the concept that you are worried about. Are you worried someone from the Carrington family would get offended when he finds out that you don’t decend from Carringtons? For the most part last names are so common that it’s fairly common to find someone with the same last name, but effectively no relation, and no one governs who’s part of the ___ family.

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• DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  What do you mean, “make sense”?

  You can change your name to whatever you want. Imagine if your last name were Epstein, or Trump. No one would question your motivation.

  It doesn’t even need to be a serious reason, some people change their name to silly things: listverse.com/…/10-bizarre-legal-name-changes/

  I don’t much like my first name, but it’s the name my mom gave me, and I would never change it because of that. My mom said she gave her kids less common names because everyone on her side of the family was named biblical names, like John, Mary, and Paul. And, she wasn’t religious, so she picked names she liked that were specifically not biblical.

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  • bigbangdangler@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    You can change your name to whatever you want. Imagine if your last name were Epstein, or Trump. No one would question your motivation.

    This is a bit of an oversimplification.

    If in the US, you can generally change your name at whim, usually after a petition and fee. But it depends on your state. Some states require a hearing to do a name change. Some require a publication, and some will only allow the change after a waiting period.

    All states will generally deny name change requests which are deemed to be fraudulent (details of that depend on state), to avoid debt, or to be harmful/hateful to others. Sometimes the definitions of these terms is not terribly clear, in which case the state can simply deny it with vague reasoning.

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• JeanValjean@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  My mother got married, then divorced a man. She didn’t like her maiden name so she kept his. She then got with my father, didn’t marry him, and gave me her new last name. How do you define that in your framework?

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• OriginEnergySux@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You may have left out some of the context to your question.

  Do you mean carrying on the family lineage and how that changes if you change your last name?

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• farmgineer@nord.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Names is just names. Not every smith actually engages in smithing. Do what you want; people in history did. As a bonus, your family tree can be more fun for anyone in the future.

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  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Not every smith actually engages in smithing.

    What?!?

    Next you’re going to try to tell me that not all blacksmiths are black.

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    • farmgineer@nord.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      Millers and Müllers are also not made of mills which I find to be rampant false advertising.

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• PlanchetteGhost@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I legally changed my surname to a historical family member’s maiden name because I honestly don’t like my family that much. It’s a compromise; it’s still in the family, but that name hasn’t been used in nearly a century.

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• WatDabney@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  What’s a “Carrington” or a “Robinson” in the first place?

  I wouldn’t presume to speak for anyone else, but I’m a human, and I thought the rest of us were too.

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