Must I change my name to my husband's name for a CR-1?

[Ronnietee 0]

Hello everyone. My fiance and I are getting married soon in my home country(Nigeria) after which we would file for CR-1. We both talked about it and I don't want to change my last name to my husband's last name. I want to retain my maiden name as it has been on all my documents(Birth cert, passport, etc) 

Would this be a red flag for a CR-1 visa? Especially since I am from a 'high fraud country'?

Would the consular officer suspect we are genuine because I don't bear my husband's last name? 

Does this have any effect on the approval? 

Thank you!

🇳🇬

[Liam2021 551]

Not a problem. You can keep your maiden name if you want.

[Georgia16 2,858]

No effect at all. You can do want you want. 

[Crazy Cat 39,183]

You can certainly choose to keep your name....My wife kept her name, and it had no effect on out case.

[pushbrk 12,092]

If "convenience" is the only reason you are not changing your name, that definitely CAN be a problem coming from Nigeria.  It depends on the totality of your circumstances.  In and of itself, name change or not, is a personal choice.  Everybody who DOES change to a married name has exactly the same inconvenience as you are wanting to avoid.  You don't live in a vacuum.

[afrocraft 313]

On 1/26/2019 at 8:02 PM, pushbrk said:

If "convenience" is the only reason you are not changing your name, that definitely CAN be a problem coming from Nigeria.  It depends on the totality of your circumstances. 

Meh. I didn't change, it was never an issue. Nigeria isn't special, after all.

[pushbrk 12,092]

1 minute ago, afrocraft said:

Meh. I didn't change, it was never an issue. Nigeria isn't special, after all.

I wouldn't call it "special".  One experience is one experience.  There are four levels of fraud we use to classify what Consular Units see.  Low, Medium, High, and Lagos.

[afrocraft 313]

2 minutes ago, pushbrk said:

I wouldn't call it "special".  One experience is one experience.  There are four levels of fraud we use to classify what Consular Units see.  Low, Medium, High, and Lagos.

Who's we? You know next to nothing about Lagos. I've gone through that embassy several times. Non-immigrant, immigrant visas. Never been denied. Deserving candidates get approved most of the time. Stop scarring people unnecessarily.

Edited February 2, 2019 by afrocraft

[pushbrk 12,092]

12 minutes ago, afrocraft said:

Who's we? You know next to nothing about Lagos. I've gone through that embassy several times. Non-immigrant, immigrant visas. Never been denied. Deserving candidates get approved most of the time. Stop scarring people unnecessarily.

Deserving applicant DO get approved the VAST majority of time, but they see a lot of undeserving candidates EVERY day, in Lagos.  The result is that people need plenty of evidence they are "deserving".  This is easy for some, but extremely difficult for others, particularly with their circumstances fit a common fraud scenario, of which there are MANY seen by the Consular Officers in Lagos.

 

Informed, and scared are not synonyms.

[afrocraft 313]

47 minutes ago, pushbrk said:

Deserving applicant DO get approved the VAST majority of time, but they see a lot of undeserving candidates EVERY day, in Lagos.  The result is that people need plenty of evidence they are "deserving".  This is easy for some, but extremely difficult for others, particularly with their circumstances fit a common fraud scenario, of which there are MANY seen by the Consular Officers in Lagos.

 

Informed, and scared are not synonyms.

Here we go again, people pontificating from 7000 miles. In fact, candidate credibility, not documentary "evidence," often carries the day, but most Nigerian applicants perform poorly under the pressure of an interview, due to a mix of culture (we're raised not to look authority figures in the eye), poor education, and poor application strategy (overly complex stories, thanks to the "high-fraud" fear-mongering on forums like this).

[pushbrk 12,092]

3 hours ago, afrocraft said:

Here we go again, people pontificating from 7000 miles. In fact, candidate credibility, not documentary "evidence," often carries the day, but most Nigerian applicants perform poorly under the pressure of an interview, due to a mix of culture (we're raised not to look authority figures in the eye), poor education, and poor application strategy (overly complex stories, thanks to the "high-fraud" fear-mongering on forums like this).

There seems to be a chicken and egg discussion in there somewhere.  I'll let folks make up their own mind on this one.  You and I have already formed our opinions, and our discussion is of no assistance to the OP.

 

[TBoneTX 43,018]

48 minutes ago, pushbrk said:

You and I have already formed our opinions, and our discussion is of no assistance to the OP.

That's right.  Please return focus to the OP.

[millefleur 5,035]

It's certainly not a requirement, but for cases with red flags, it doesn't hurt. I'm the USC and I changed my last name to my husband's (we even have the culturally-specific Slavic gendered last names with different endings, mine the feminine version and his the masculine version naturally) because this is customary in his culture and I wanted to follow that and also, for me, it just showed my dedication to our relationship because our case had a bunch of red flags and I had a previous name change, so that was no biggie to me as I had been through the whole updating of all documents process before.

 

That said, in the US today as most of us know, it's really common now for women to retain their original last names and not change their name upon marriage. My two cents would be just do what you feel makes sense to you. It is a whole extra process to back and get your social security card, birth certificate and passport changed into the new name, so I totally get why people don't want to go through all that. I think you should be fine considering on the American culture side of things it's so common to see married couples with different last names now.

[Mrsamoah2019 593]

No it's not mandatory to change your name..I changed mine as a piece of evidence my husbands embassy is strict and high fraud 

Edited February 3, 2019 by Mrsamoah2019

[AfricanQ 241]

2 hours ago, Mrsamoah2019 said:

No it's not mandatory to change your name..I changed mine as a piece of evidence my husbands embassy is strict and high fraud 

Same here. I changed my last name because gh I'd very difficult.