My name is different on my documents

Which name counts?#

The one you use for all official purposes. That is the passport office's starting point: its guidance says you must apply in the name you use for all official purposes, that the name on the application must match your supporting documents, and that, exceptions aside, no passport is issued while there are doubts or inconsistencies between the two. So choose the name first, then bring every record into line with it. How you do that depends on why the documents differ. Two things that look like differences usually are not: a title, and a missing middle name. The questions at the end cover both.

Maiden name on some documents, married name on others#

HM Passport Office's guidance says there is no legal basis in the UK for a name to change because of a marriage or civil partnership: you may keep your name, take your partner's, double-barrel the two, or take part of your partner's. What links the names is the certificate. GOV.UK's deed poll guide says a spouse's or civil partner's surname needs no deed poll, only a copy of the certificate for each organisation that holds your records, and for a passport the certificate alone is normally enough. For the documents still in your maiden name, the certificate is the evidence to send.

If you use both names and are not a dual national, the passport office can say so. Where you take your spouse's surname but also keep using your previous one, for work for example, you confirm it on the application or in a signed statement, and the passport is issued in your married name with an observation that you are also known by your previous surname. Where you took your spouse's surname but use only your previous one for all official purposes, the passport can stay in your previous name, with the observation naming your married surname instead. To go back to your maiden name everywhere, see can I change my name back?

The certificate does not stretch to everything. Keeping your maiden name as a middle name is adding a forename, which the guidance treats as a change of name that the certificate cannot evidence; it gives a statutory declaration as an example of what can. Joining the two surnames into one word needs other evidence, such as a change of name deed, and so does dropping your previous surname from a double-barrelled name later, because the certificate cannot be used for that either. Double-barrelling after marriage covers the certificate's reach.

My name is spelt differently on two documents#

Two situations look alike and are not.

The organisation got it wrong. A misspelling in someone else's record is theirs to correct. GOV.UK's page on the vehicle log book is a good example: you can update information that is wrong by mistake, such as a misspelt name, and no proof of a change of name is needed when it was spelt incorrectly in the log book.

You use a spelling your birth certificate or passport does not show. That is a change of name, however small, and the passport office has a route for the smallest. Its caseworker guidance counts as minor a change to the spelling of a forename (Lesley to Leslie is its example), a new order of forenames, adding or dropping a hyphen between two forenames, and dropping any forename except the first; for a surname, only adding or removing the hyphen in a double-barrelled name. With two documents showing you use the name, it accepts a minor forename change on a first adult passport, and a minor change to a forename or surname on a renewal. Without them, a first passport is issued in the birth certificate's name with an observation that you are also known by the other, and a renewal keeps the old passport's version. Adding a forename is never minor.

That route is the passport office's, and other organisations set their own rules. Nationwide's change of name form says that to record a change to any of your forenames you must produce a deed poll or a statutory declaration, and NatWest asks for one of the same two for what it calls any other change of name. A spelling that has drifted across several records is simpler to settle with one deed poll, which both accept.

If the mistake is on your birth certificate itself, the passport office's guidance tells staff not to send you off to correct it; for a passport in the spelling you use, it asks for evidence of the change and of its use. A correction to the register is only for an error made when the birth was registered, and our birth certificate answer explains how that works.

Which document should I fix first?#

It depends on what links the names.

• A deed poll. The passport office wants one document already showing the new name in use, so the organisations that produce one, your bank, employer, HMRC or council, go first; then the passport; then DVLA, which also wants the original deed. Who to tell, and in what order sets it out.
• A marriage certificate. The passport office needs only the certificate, so the passport can go first. Once it shows your married name, DVLA accepts your 9-digit GB passport number as evidence of a change after marriage or divorce, in place of the certificate.
• The two-document route. Both documents must already show the new spelling, so the passport comes after them.

When does one deed poll cover all of them?#

When the differences are of more than one kind, or an organisation will not accept the route you have. One deed poll gives your former name exactly as the document your records start from shows it, your birth certificate or last passport, and the name you now use for all purposes, so every organisation sees the same document. If there is a step in your history with nothing from the time to show it, the passport office also asks for a statutory declaration covering every name you have used: I changed my name years ago without a deed poll explains when.