Does anyone know how to go about changing ones legal name through the local court system? I’m American and live in Taipei
Why would a Taiwan court have the power to change your name for you? You’re not Taiwanese and weren’t born here. Plus the Taiwan system requires a specific reason for a name change, you can’t change it on a whim.
Why would a Taiwan court have the power to change your name for you? You’re not Taiwanese and weren’t born here. Plus the Taiwan system requires a specific reason for a name change, you can’t change it on a whim.[/quote]
I was thinking the same thing. But according to the reply I received from the U.S. bureau of consular affairs, in order to change my name I must go through the local court system of the country in which I currently reside as I am bound by their laws. Once I’ve done that, then I can submit a change request at AIT.
I won’t ask about your situation, but I imagine it would be worlds easier to get a name change next time you visit home.
I’ve wondered about this too. It seems to be a Catch-22. But then, I haven’t asked a local court. (What would be considered a good reason–the advice of a fortune teller?)
One interesting exception is, the AIT will grant a change of name if you get married. (Can a man assume his wife’s family name? Can he change his name to something unrelated? Does the name change have to occur immediately after marriage? I dunno.)
[quote=“Zla’od”]I’ve wondered about this too. It seems to be a Catch-22. But then, I haven’t asked a local court. (What would be considered a good reason–the advice of a fortune teller?)
One interesting exception is, the AIT will grant a change of name if you get married. (Can a man assume his wife’s family name? Can he change his name to something unrelated? Does the name change have to occur immediately after marriage? I dunno.)[/quote]
Are you sure about that? AIT doesn’t really deal with marriage because that’s a state issue, not a federal issue. In the US, I’m not yet legally married to my wife because I have no way of registering it. But as soon as she and I touch down in California, it’s retroactively recognized as long as we show the Taiwan marriage certificate… Really weird.
Why would it need to be registered in the USA? If there were ever a dispute about it (say, she wanted a U.S. divorce but you claimed that you never married), she would just need to produce the Taiwan record (plus certified translation, apostile, etc.) and–providing there were no complicating factors, such as incapacity or bigamy–the U.S. judge would surely recognize the Taiwan marriage.
On the AIT policy, all it says is (for changing passport data)
kaohsiung.ait.org.tw/changing-passport-data.html
I happen to know that Chinese characters are not acceptable at all (I mean, they cannot be added to a passport), and romanized Chinese is only accepted if your supporting documents are also in romanized Chinese. That is, if you marry someone surnamed 陳, you obviously can’t get a U.S. passport in the name of 陳, and if you want to change your surname to “Chen” then you’d need those roman letters to appear in your official documents that you submit.
[quote=“Zla’od”]Why would it need to be registered in the USA? If there were ever a dispute about it (say, she wanted a U.S. divorce but you claimed that you never married), she would just need to produce the Taiwan record (plus certified translation, apostile, etc.) and–providing there were no complicating factors, such as incapacity or bigamy–the U.S. judge would surely recognize the Taiwan marriage.
On the AIT policy, all it says is (for changing passport data)
kaohsiung.ait.org.tw/changing-passport-data.html
I happen to know that Chinese characters are not acceptable at all (I mean, they cannot be added to a passport), and romanized Chinese is only accepted if your supporting documents are also in romanized Chinese. That is, if you marry someone surnamed 陳, you obviously can’t get a U.S. passport in the name of 陳, and if you want to change your surname to “Chen” then you’d need those roman letters to appear in your official documents that you submit.[/quote]
Oh. You’re assuming OP is a woman seeking to take her husband’s last name. I was assuming OP was either a man or a woman who wanted to change his/her first and last names just to get a second beginning on life. 
The wording does not specifically state that only women are eligible to do this. Nor does it specify what name(s) the newly-married party might be eligible to adopt (can they hyphenate? can they change to something unrelated?), or when this can or must be done (immediately after marriage? at the first passport renewal?). Anyway, it is a potential loophole.
I would be interested to hear from some foreigner who has actually petitioned a local court for a name-change. Foreign Buddhist monks, perhaps…?
Okay, I wrote the AIT, corresponding back and forth with an unnamed person or persons in the consular section. Here is what I’ve learned, from the horse’s mouth as it were, albeit trance-channeled by me. (They did not give permission to quote directly–except for material already posted to the AIT website–so the following represents my summary.)
An American citizen residing in Taiwan can change his or her name on a passport, during ordinary passport renewal, by presenting the AIT with the original, or a certified copy, of either (a) an AMERICAN court order, or (b) a marriage certificate (possibly from Taiwan).
(The line “We no longer amend passports,” quoted above, means that a name change cannot be done as an amendment to an existing passport, but requires one to apply for a new passport.)
So Option One to go through some U.S. court. (The following is my gloss, not the AIT’s.) Each state or territory will have its own laws governing such things as whether non-residents can apply for legal name-changes, and if not, who counts as a legal resident. Yes, the process may well require a trip out of Taiwan.
Option Two is to get married.
Suppose John Doe (US) marries Zhang Huimei (US-TW) in Taiwan. Can she apply for a new passport in the name of Huimei Doe? Yes–she just needs the marriage certificate. (I didn’t ask about pinyinization issues, in case the marriage record is only in Chinese characters, but see below.)
Can he apply for a new passport in the name of John Zhang? Yes again.
Can they apply for a hyphenated name, i.e. John and Huimei Doe-Zhang (or Zhang-Doe)? Yes.
But what if they want to create a married name which is entirely different from either of their original surnames. (As Dr. John Bear, who writes on degree mills and distance education, and his wife did.) Can they do that?
Apparently yes.
But surely there must be some restrictions…!
Only the same restrictions that apply to everybody else seeking a U.S. passport. For example, the names have to be written in the Roman alphabet, etc. See “Names to be used in U.S. passports” state.gov/m/a/dir/regs/fam/07fam/c22714.htm
But wait, you say. Does that mean that anybody who has ever gotten married, can apply to change his or her name to anything at all, without any official documents with that name on it?!!
Well, the Consular Affairs officer must approve. They have the authority to require additional documents, and make decisions on a case-by-case basis (thus frustrating my attempt to codify the rules for you in the abstract).
As an aside, I am fascinated by the philosophy of names, and could chat about these things all day. So thank you very much to the patient folks at the AIT consular section! And good luck to the OP, and anyone else seeking to rebrand themselves!