Just thought I would throw this one out there, in case someone else might find it helpful!

I recently ran into a problem with my divorce. I am going back to my maiden name. My ex is the one who filed, and our divorce is uncontested, so my lawyer told me that only my ex and his witness had to show up for the hearing, even with having the name change put into the divorce decree. Now this should be the same for all counties, as divorce is a state-level action, not county-level. My lawyer has never had a problem with this before, and a name change back to the maiden name is basically automatically given if requested.

Well, not in the county where my ex filed. It's a small county down in southern Maryland where they evidently do things their own way, and nobody is going to tell them differently! The judge insists on the defendant being present at the hearing to swear in court that she is not going back to her maiden name to avoid creditors; if she doesn't, the judge won't grant the name change as part of the divorce decree.

Now my lawyer even had me do a signed affadavit, which is equivalent to an appearance in court, stating that I am not doing it to avoid creditors, and included a copy of my credit report which shows that BOTH names are associated with all my credit already. Not good enough - the judge still insisted I needed to show up.

Well, I didn't feel like taking an entire day of of work and driving 2 1/2 hours each way to show up in court for something that should have been automatic. So I did a little research. In Maryland at least, a woman can revert back to her maiden name at any time. To get MVA to accept the change, she needs her birth certificate, marriage certificate, and one other form of id showing the maiden name (old social security card, old bank statement, etc.) When I got there, the first person I talked to at the desk tried to tell me I needed a court document, but after I insisted a little, someone went back to check with a supervisor, and after that I had no problem.

The key here is - you have to be going back to your maiden name as it is in your birth certificate.

Once I got my driver's license changed, I took that to a Social Security office, and they changed the name for my SSN back without any questions.

Obviously, your mileage may vary on this from state to state, but for anyone running into the same kind of problem - or if you didn't get the name change done during the divorce, and would like to do it without having to spend money going to court, you may want to check out this option!

I found all this out myself with a little research on-line; it surprised my lawyer too! I guess I'm a little stubborn, huh? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />