Quote:
The process involved hours on the phone with the Social Security office and the county clerk.
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She's lucky. In Texas, only marital name changes can be done by mail/phone. To change a child's name, you must bring the parental consent forms to the Social Security office in person, which is obscenely crowded from January through May ("tax season," said the security guard.) I had a four-hour wait, and I got there first thing in the morning. The saddest moment came after I was finished, and I carefully wound my way through the crowd and out the main door at the very back, only to discover that there was a long line of people just waiting outside the door--I had to inform them that there was not actually a line at all, there was a little take-a-number machine just inside the doors, but that it didn't matter anyway because at this point business hours would end long before their number would ever be called.
(Edit: which is not to say I changed my own child's name out of remorse; this was a court-ordered name change for one of my stepchildren as part of the custody ruling.)