Name changes
My kid and I are both going to be changing our legal names at some point in the near future, and I'm discovering that the process is so much easier than it was 28 years ago when all I did was change my last name. And it's much cheaper these days too, thankfully.
Twenty-eight years ago I think, all told, it ran me approximately $250 or so to deal with my name change. I had to pay the processing fee, plus publication fees for the provincial Queen's Press and local newspaper to announce the upcoming name change, and then for the replacement birth certificate as well. And all I did was legally change my last name.
This time around I'm changing my entire name, something I wanted to do all those years ago but didn't because it would have caused too big of an argument with my mother. And considering at that time I was a new mother I just didn't have the energy to devote to arguing with her. I can understand why she wanted me to keep one of my middle names, but that name only has significance to her as I never met my paternal grandmother due to her dying long before I was even a twinkle in my mother's eye. Come to think of it, I never met my namesake for my other middle name either and all I know about the person is that my mother couldn't stand him. I did, however, met the person whose given name I share, and I remember her being a selfish waste of space.
For many years now I honestly haven't felt that my current name is a good fit for me. I don't think it was EVER a good fit for me, but I didn't know what I'd want to change it to otherwise. I've been trying out potential names online for awhile now, but it's only been in the last couple of months that I've settled on something that feels right. I just wonder how long it will take for people to get used to calling me by my new name and how long it will take for me to get used to answering to it. Unlike my kid, I'm not already using it at all but I should go through and change all my social media over sooner rather than later. Although I know that it will cause my mother to ask questions that I'm not ready to provide with answers to. She's not in my friends lists on any of my social media due to a HUGE falling out we had, but she still messages me once in a while, and I know that if I tell her that her only grandchild is changing their name (and gender marker, for that matter) that it will cause another meltdown on her part. Y'see, my kid was named after her, my dad, and my Opa...and the only names my kid is changing is their first name and their last name - their first name is currently the male version of my mother's name. It's only natural that my kid would want to change their name from something so obviously masculine when they, themselves, don't identify as male, and seeing as how they disowned their grandmother it's only natural that they wouldn't switch to that feminine version either.
Needless to say, the conversation with my mother about changing names is going to be an interesting one that may end up with me blocking my mother yet again. *sigh*
But for now, we're just waiting on my kid's replacement birth certificate to arrive in the mail before we fill out the Vital Statistic name change forms and head into the VS office to pay for this all to be done. Once we've got the approval paperwork in hand, then we get to send off for birth certificates in our new names. Then starts the fun process of getting our names changed everywhere else...bills, etc...woo?
Twenty-eight years ago I think, all told, it ran me approximately $250 or so to deal with my name change. I had to pay the processing fee, plus publication fees for the provincial Queen's Press and local newspaper to announce the upcoming name change, and then for the replacement birth certificate as well. And all I did was legally change my last name.
This time around I'm changing my entire name, something I wanted to do all those years ago but didn't because it would have caused too big of an argument with my mother. And considering at that time I was a new mother I just didn't have the energy to devote to arguing with her. I can understand why she wanted me to keep one of my middle names, but that name only has significance to her as I never met my paternal grandmother due to her dying long before I was even a twinkle in my mother's eye. Come to think of it, I never met my namesake for my other middle name either and all I know about the person is that my mother couldn't stand him. I did, however, met the person whose given name I share, and I remember her being a selfish waste of space.
For many years now I honestly haven't felt that my current name is a good fit for me. I don't think it was EVER a good fit for me, but I didn't know what I'd want to change it to otherwise. I've been trying out potential names online for awhile now, but it's only been in the last couple of months that I've settled on something that feels right. I just wonder how long it will take for people to get used to calling me by my new name and how long it will take for me to get used to answering to it. Unlike my kid, I'm not already using it at all but I should go through and change all my social media over sooner rather than later. Although I know that it will cause my mother to ask questions that I'm not ready to provide with answers to. She's not in my friends lists on any of my social media due to a HUGE falling out we had, but she still messages me once in a while, and I know that if I tell her that her only grandchild is changing their name (and gender marker, for that matter) that it will cause another meltdown on her part. Y'see, my kid was named after her, my dad, and my Opa...and the only names my kid is changing is their first name and their last name - their first name is currently the male version of my mother's name. It's only natural that my kid would want to change their name from something so obviously masculine when they, themselves, don't identify as male, and seeing as how they disowned their grandmother it's only natural that they wouldn't switch to that feminine version either.
Needless to say, the conversation with my mother about changing names is going to be an interesting one that may end up with me blocking my mother yet again. *sigh*
But for now, we're just waiting on my kid's replacement birth certificate to arrive in the mail before we fill out the Vital Statistic name change forms and head into the VS office to pay for this all to be done. Once we've got the approval paperwork in hand, then we get to send off for birth certificates in our new names. Then starts the fun process of getting our names changed everywhere else...bills, etc...woo?
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