How to Legally Change Your Name in Oklahoma

There Are Multiple Ways to Do a Name Change in Oklahoma

Video Transcribed:

How to legally change your name in Oklahoma. I’m an attorney in Tulsa James Wirth. In this video, we’re going to talk about generally the procedure for doing a name change in Oklahoma. So first off, there are multiple ways to do a name change in Oklahoma but most of them are very specific to your circumstances.

So if you’re getting married, getting divorced, going through an adoption, filing a paternity case, those are all reasons to get names changed for particular individuals involved in those cases. But if none of those apply to your circumstances, then you’re going to fall into the General Provisions, which goes under Title 12, Chapter 33, Name Changes.

For that, there’s a specific procedure that you follow. So you need to draft a petition for a name change, and that petition has certain requirements of things that must be in it. I did a previous video covering those things. You file the petition, you draft up an order-setting hearing. You get that order setting hearing to the judge. The judge looks at the judge’s schedule, picks a date for it that’s far enough out so that you have time to give notice. So now you’ve got your petition on file, and you’ve got an order signed by the judge setting it for hearing. You file that with the court clerk.

Then that’s going to be a specific form for you to give notice of because you’re required to do notice by publication. So you’re going to provide that to a legal newspaper in your county. On how to do that, you can talk to the court clerk when you’re filing that order setting.

A lot of times they have boxes at the counter there where you can drop them in the box. The newspaper picks them up and then they bill you for it or require payment upfront. In any case, it’s published, and it’s got to be published at least 10 days in advance of the hearing, and there are requirements of what needs to be in that publication.

It’s got to have the case style. It’s got to have the time, date, place of the hearing. It’s got to have notice to everybody that they can file a protest at the court if they want to object to the name change. So you get that done.

Then you show up on the hearing date to see who’s objecting or not objecting. Then the court’s probably going to go over your petition, make sure everything’s true and accurate, may hear why you want the name change, which also needs to be in your petition.

The court’s generally going to be looking, is there a fraudulent purpose for this? Is there an illegal purpose for this? Is this person trying to hide out from creditors? If none of those are involved, then the court is required by statute to grant it so as long as it’s properly before the court, that is, is jurisdiction proper? Are they a resident of the county for the 30 days prior to filing? Then you go through those.

Once that’s done, you’ve got it granted by the judge, but you still don’t have an order. A lot of people are shocked to know judges do not generally draft their own orders. The attorneys draft those orders or the petitioners that don’t have attorneys. So you’re going to need a draft order for the judge to sign.

You file that with the court clerk. Get not just a file stamp copy but a certified copy. Then you’ve got your Order of Name Change. You want to get lots of copies of those because you’re going to want to provide one to the social security office to get your social security card updated, one to the State of Oklahoma for your driver’s license, and some extras in case you need them for other things.

So that generally goes through the process and the different stages for a petition for name change in Oklahoma. There are issues that come up, more information to it. I’ve got additional videos covering some of those. But if you want to talk about something more specific to your circumstances, you’re going to want a private consult with an Oklahoma attorney. To get that scheduled, you can go to makelaweasy.com.