Thank you! I received a letter this weekend confirming the oath ceremony.
You are correct, a judge has to be involved if you are changing your name during the citizenship process. When I had the interview on Oct 6th, it was not possible to complete the oath ceremony (regardless of name changes). They asked me to confirm my new name and instructed me to wait for a letter scheduling the ceremony. They said that due to the name change, the ceremony would be in either Riverside or Pasadena. I did not have to arrange anything with the courts directly, USCIS took care of that as I’d requested and confirmed my name change.
The oath ceremony letter states my date will be Dec 19th, so I’m happy with how fast it’s all moved.
good luck! Let me know if you have any more questions