Tired of being Jason? Or Amanda? Or Jules? No problem, just change your name. But first, in California anyway, you have to run a legal notice in the paper with your old, boring beat-up name and your new, spiffy name, I guess so you can't fool anyone who's after you for money or whatever. I love these notices, because each one is a snapshot of a moment in someone's life when they slough off their busted old identity and look towards a bright new future.
You can find them in the back of the Examiner, probably because it's the cheapest place to run an ad. Look for the heading ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME. Let's see who's changing things up today.
First, we have Aspen Brooke Branch-Moore, who is going to become Aspen Brooke Dominguez. Both are pretty great, because "Aspen Brooke" is fantastic. It literally sounds like money rubbing together. I gotta say, though, I like "Branch-Moore" slightly more for its vaguely old-money British feel. But I suppose Aspen is getting adopted? Or maybe a commitment ceremony? Or something. Either way, you're good, Aspen.
Next, we have Marietonie Rosa Alcaraz Yumul, who wants to become Marietonie Rosa Yumul Yambad. Lose an Alcaraz, gain a Yambad, I always say!
Our clear, absolute winner today is Nancy Ellen Bevers. She is discarding that admittedly somewhat pedestrian moniker and is going big. I mean, REALLY BIG. Ready? Nancy will now be rocking:
ALAYA.
That's it. Just ALAYA. In a word, FABULOUS. She's joining Cher and Liberace and Siegfried and Roy in the solo name club. Congratulations, Nancy! You win Name Changing for today.
(So I guess you can legally go by one name? Huh. I did now know that. But I sort of want to show up at Nancy/Alaya's name change hearing just to congratulate her.)
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As someone who's dad changed his last name to an initial only (yeah, I know), you CAN go by quirky one name things, but as you can imagine (or know), it's a pain in the ass. Most official type documents not a huge fan of such sense of self. But perhaps this forces them to adapt?
The filing fee for a name change in San Francisco county is $450.
A patient of mine in Georgia once changed name from David Allen Edwards to Malachi. One word. One creepy little word.
True story: I used to be the coordinator for English grad programs at your friendly local public university. This one person applied to one of our programs, including in her app a statement explaining that, though every transcript from each of the four colleges she attended had a different names, they were all her transcripts.
She noted that the transcripts for the most recent school she attended, "bear my current name, Boo Eduardo."
OK... 1. Boo Eduardo. The first of her names was something like Mary Swanson--I assumed the name she was born with. But she had finally arrived at Boo Eduardo. 2. "My current name"... because, given her history, that was clearly subject to change.
This is so much better than making fun of obits.
Name changes provide a lot of work for the translation industry. By work, I mean mostly headaches, but there you go.
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