I understand the motivation, but wonder about the process. The article seems to imply that every individual will change their name to whatever they like. Will every member of the family have a different last name?
Perhaps the family will decide together on what their new last name will be. But what about the parent’s siblings? Are all of them now going to have different last names? Maybe, the all of the descendants of the gandparents should decide together on a new last name. The larger the group, the harder it will be to find a name you all agree on. But without doing this the family and generations will be fragmented.
Then there is the actual process of legally changing your name. The article seems to imply that you just show up at the County Registar and fill out a form and it’s done. There may be somwhere where you can do this, but — at least in the United States — it’s not that simple. In general, there are two ways to change your name in this country: You can marry, or you can go to Court and request a judge to grant you name change.
When I married, my husband and I chose to incoporate both of our last names into our new last name. California law would not have allowed us to chose a totally different name as part of the marriage process. If we had wanted to do that, we would have had to go to court.
The difficulty, and expense, of requesting a name change through the courts varyies from state to state. In California, you can do it yourself, without legal representation, if you aren’t intimidated by the process. Many people choose to use a lawyer, which adds several hundred dollars to the cost of whatever the County charges for it’s court and registration expenses.
Again, this is an interesting idea, but not as easy as the article seems to imply.
