{"id":291,"date":"2010-05-05T01:18:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T00:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/05\/i-changed-my-name-today\/"},"modified":"2015-06-19T00:23:43","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T23:23:43","slug":"i-changed-my-name-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/05\/i-changed-my-name-today\/","title":{"rendered":"I Changed my Name Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am now, legally, Charles C\u00e9leste Hutchins. (But you can keep calling me Les).  I changed my name via a device called a statutory declaration.  Rather than hiring a solicitor to draft the document, I used a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pfc.org.uk\/node\/1545\">web form at Press for Change<\/a> and added a spot at the bottom for me to sign.  I printed it out and then called around Solicitors in my area.  One of them told me to just pop by.<br \/>\nA woman there looked at the form and had me sign it in front of her.  My signature is wonky as I&#8217;ve never signed &#8220;Charles&#8221; before.  Then, she she asked me to raise my right hand and swear that the contents of the form were true and correct, so I did so, feeling kind of goofy.  She then filled out her part and stamped it.  I paid \u00a37 for this, which is apparently the going rate.<br \/>\nThere are several ways you can change your name in the UK, but this kind is the only one <a href=\"http:\/\/london.usembassy.gov\/cons_new\/acs\/passports\/namechange.html\">recognised by the US embassy<\/a>.  I also need to show that I&#8217;ve been using the new name, so I called my phone company and will need to mail or fax them a copy of the form.  Tomorrow, I&#8217;ll go to my bank for a new checque book and then my GP for a new NHS card.  Those three documents should be enough for me to get a new passport with my new legal name.  I will also need to inform my university and documents that they send me would also count for the embassy.<br \/>\nThis is a <em>lot<\/em> easier than changing at home would have been.  I&#8217;m quite pleased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am now, legally, Charles C\u00e9leste Hutchins. (But you can keep calling me Les). I changed my name via a device called a statutory declaration. Rather than hiring a solicitor to draft the document, I used a web form at Press for Change and added a spot at the bottom for me to sign. I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/05\/i-changed-my-name-today\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">I Changed my Name Today<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,24,83,96],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-celesteh","tag-trans","tag-uk","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2497,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/2497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}