2 last names issues...

[jc2013 0]

Hello, i'm new to posting here, but I have researched and found great help here for a while now.

I have found similar threads concerning this issues but I want to be a little more specific and hope you guys can help me out here. Thanks in advance!

Me and my wife got married back in Sept, started the my AOS process in Nov...and finally got my Green Card a few weeks ago. I was born in Ecuador and as many of you guys know, coming from a Latin background we are legally named with both father and mother's last names. (1st name) (middle name) (father's last name) (mother's last name). IN our marriage license my name appears as stated, and when my wife tried to change her last name to mine (father's last name) they wouldn't let her because of the marriage license. It was either use both of my last names or my mother's last name which logically does not even make sense.

That was issue number 1. Now the second or upcoming isssues... I applied for my SSN last week and they told me they have to process me with my FULL name as it appears on my green card and birth certificate but I could drop my mother's last name once i receive my SS card.

questions:

1. I read a few cases about the DMV only allowing to use the name that appears on the Marriage Certificate even though on her SS card she has my paternal last name...and unless we prove it with the marriage certificate she's out of luck...what's the easiest way to go about this?

2. On the SS website it says that in order to change your name on the SS card you need to provide documents verifying your name change and such. If anyone has gone through the same, how was the process to drop the maternal last name from the SS card? Do you have to provide any new documents or what?

3. For the rest of my process and such, like when I apply for my citizenship ...how will this affect me? Can I drop my mother's last name for my legal process now or should I keep it and drop it after I get approved for citizenship?

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I just want to be sure that when I open a bank account, credit cards, build my credit and any other legal purposes, my name appears with just my paternal last name so that there's no conflicts with my wife also just using my paternal last name.

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the weird thing is that my brother went through the same process and he actually just became a citizen (we both were born on the same country, married on the same city, applied for our AOS the same way) but during the process they only used our paternal last name and maternal last name was never used even though on the birth certificate he has both.

thanks again

[NikLR 13,227]

Is it possible that he did not fill out any of the paperwork with your maternal surname? Traditionally in Canada and the USA, the final name appearing on a person's name is their legal surname. Everything else after a first name is a middle name unless hyphenated, a prefix or suffix.

You may have to legally change your name. How you do this will likely vary from state to state and maybe from county to county. I suggest contacting a local vital statistics place and inquiring. (Wherever you would get a birth certificate, marriage certificate etc...) It's also possible the immigrants from your region may be the most helpful for this issue so perhaps a mod could move this to a regional forum?

Edited March 21, 2013 by NikiR

[jc2013 0]

Is it possible that he did not fill out any of the paperwork with your maternal surname? Traditionally in Canada and the USA, the final name appearing on a person's name is their legal surname. Everything else after a first name is a middle name unless hyphenated, a prefix or suffix.

You may have to legally change your name. How you do this will likely vary from state to state and maybe from county to county. I suggest contacting a local vital statistics place and inquiring. (Wherever you would get a birth certificate, marriage certificate etc...) It's also possible the immigrants from your region may be the most helpful for this issue so perhaps a mod could move this to a regional forum?

I only know of one thing that could have possibly affected the way his name appeared. On his marriage certificate he only has the paternal last name, even though his birth certificate has both paternal and maternal. But like i stated before, we both live on the same city, got married on city, same last names and all. Maybe they forgot to include the maternal last name during the marriage certificate process? And we went to the same immigration specialist to do our documents, however, they translated his birth certificate without the maternal last name, but on mine they kept both. I even asked the guy who did my documents if he could just use my paternal last name but he said it had to be the way it was on my original certificate. I guess I'm out of luck on that one..but hopefully I can fix this issue for my SSN ..

[KayDeeCee 4,893]

I was forced to use both of my husband's last names in order for the DMV to supply me with a drivers license. I had to use what was on the marriage certificate exactly AND it had to match exactly to my SSN too. The only way I could take just his first paternal last name as my married name is to go to court and legally change it to have just the one name. I have not decided if I will do so in the future or not. For now I just use both for the important legal things and the culturally correct single paternal one for more casual everyday aspects of life, like my husband does as well (and how it is done in Mexico).

[Ryan H 3,812]

Moved from IR-1/CR-1 Process & Procedures to General Immigration-Related Discussion.

[jc2013 0]

I just spoke to SS and they told me that in order for them to change my name I have to get my name legally changed. I just need some real-life experience from you guys to see how you guys dealt with this :/