jonholmes92

I'm glad to offer any advice that might be helpful! Maybe a notarized affidavit by your mother explaining why her maiden name was listed incorrectly and why the change is impossible would help? I know in some cases a sworn testimony under penalty of perjury can be good enough for legal matters, but not sure about civil documents. I also had some blatant misspellings in some of our civil documents that are minor, but I thought they would be picked on anyway. They don't always pick up on the errors.

You never know with protocol if some small error will cause a huge problem, but in my experience, the birth certificate has not been scrutinized too closely. First of all, I didn't have my long form birth certificate, only a certified copy of a short form. My fathers name was not on my birth certificate at all, which is supposedly an issue, but it never presented a problem for me. I think somehow that the passport biographic data page will make up for it, but I'm no expert and I can't really assure you. I think if it came down to the birth certificate, they would issue an RFE and give you a chance to provide an amended one at that point.

OP's wife is the US Citizen Petitioner. While your information above is correct, it's not applicable to the OP.

OH! Makes sense. Thanks.

Then yes, the name on her documents and ID is completely irrelevant.

Conflicting names can always cause some hiccups, but these folks know that
in certain countries, like in US, women tend to take on husband's last name
and as long as there are supporting documents to prove it, all should be fine.
You can change her passport name, but she still have birth certificate, US tax filings, etc.
that are still in her original last name. In such case, your marriage certificate should be sufficient
tie the two different last names to the same person, so I wouldn't sweat over this.

Non-issue

Household members means when you are financially tied;such as a dependent, listed on his tax return.
Just living in the same home does not make you a household member for the purposes of the I-864.

You will be using the I-864 for the affadavit of support, and yes, your wife will need to fill one out as primary sponsor even though she currently makes 0 income, with her parents being joint sponsors. She, and they, will need to include evidence of 3 years of tax filings (yes, for your wife too, even though she lives abroad), and then the parents will also include evidence of US citizenship and continued income (such as paystubs, letter from employer).