How to Change Your Name in Georgia: Petition, Notice, and Hearing

To change your name in Georgia, you file a petition in the Superior Court of the county where you live, publish notice of the petition in the local legal newspaper once a week for four weeks, and appear at a hearing where a judge signs a final order. The whole process usually takes about five to six weeks. If your name change is tied to a marriage or divorce, you can often skip the court petition entirely.

Marriage or Divorce: When You Can Skip the Court

If you’re taking a spouse’s surname, you handle the name change when you apply for your marriage license at the county probate court. The marriage certificate itself becomes your legal proof of the change, and you can use it to update your driver’s license, Social Security card, and other records without ever filing a Superior Court petition.

Divorce works much the same way. Georgia law lets either party request restoration of a maiden or prior name as part of the divorce pleadings. If the divorce is granted, the decree restores the requested name automatically, with no separate petition needed.¹

Everything that follows applies when you want to change your name for any other reason, or when your divorce decree didn’t include a name restoration request.

What the Court Needs From You

Georgia’s name change statute, O.C.G.A. § 19-12-1, sets the ground rules. You file in the Superior Court of the county where you currently live, your petition has to explain why you want the change, and the court will deny the request if it looks designed to defraud creditors or evade legal obligations.²

If you have a criminal record, disclose past convictions and any pending charges in your petition. A criminal history doesn’t automatically disqualify you, but a judge who sees fraud or identity theft convictions may look at the request skeptically. The court has broad discretion, and omitting criminal history is one of the quickest ways to get denied.

Registered sex offenders can petition, but Georgia law requires anyone on the registry to report any name change to the sheriff of their county within 72 hours.³

Filing the Petition

Start at the Clerk of Superior Court in your county. You’ll need three documents: the Petition for Change of Name, a Verification form, and a Notice of Petition. Some counties post fillable versions online; others require you to pick them up in person. The petition asks for your current legal name, the name you want, your address, and the reasons behind the request.

The Verification is a sworn statement that everything in your petition is true, signed in front of a notary. Georgia caps notary fees at $2 for the notarial act and a maximum of $4 per service if certification is also required, so this step costs almost nothing.⁴ Read every field before you sign, because fixing a notarized document means starting over.

File the complete package with the clerk. Filing fees vary by county. Cobb County, for example, charges $218 for the general civil filing that covers name changes.⁵ Other counties fall in the $200 to $250 range. Call ahead to confirm the amount and accepted payment methods.

Publishing Notice in the Legal Organ

Within seven days of filing, you must arrange for the Notice of Petition to be published in your county’s official legal organ, the newspaper designated to carry legal advertisements. The notice runs once a week for four consecutive weeks and informs anyone who wants to object that they can appear and file objections with the court.²

The newspaper charges its own publication fee, typically $200 to $250 for the full four-week run. After the last notice runs, the paper gives you an Affidavit of Publication confirming the notice appeared as required. Keep it safe. The judge won’t move forward at your hearing without it.

The Hearing and Final Order

Your hearing can be scheduled no earlier than 30 days after you filed the petition. You’ll confirm the details under oath, and the judge may ask why you want the change and verify there’s no fraudulent purpose behind it. Bring the Affidavit of Publication and any supporting documents.²

If anyone filed an objection during the publication period, the hearing becomes more involved. The objector could be a creditor, a former spouse, or anyone else claiming an interest, and the judge will hear both sides before deciding. Contested hearings are uncommon for adults with clean records and straightforward reasons.

If no objection was filed and the judge is satisfied, they sign a Final Order granting the name change. Before you leave the courthouse, order several certified copies from the clerk. Every agency that updates your records will want its own copy, and ordering more later takes time.

Confidential Petitions for Victims of Family Violence or Human Trafficking

Georgia law provides a confidential path for people changing their names to escape domestic violence or human trafficking. If you qualify, you can petition the court to file the matter under seal, and the judge can waive the newspaper publication requirement entirely so your new name never appears in a public notice. The court can then hear and decide the matter privately.²

Standard four-week publication effectively broadcasts your old and new names to anyone reading the legal notices, which can be dangerous for someone fleeing an abuser. Mention your situation to the clerk when you pick up your forms, or ask a domestic violence advocacy organization for help with the sealed petition.

Changing a Child’s Name

A parent or guardian can petition in Superior Court using the same process, but the consent and notice rules are stricter. If both parents are living and haven’t abandoned the child, both must provide written consent filed with the petition. Written consent isn’t required from a parent who hasn’t contributed any child support for five or more consecutive years immediately before the petition is filed.²

Even when written consent isn’t required, both parents must still be served with a copy of the petition. How service works depends on where the other parent lives:

In Georgia, address known: personal, in-person service.
In Georgia, address unknown: service by publication in the county’s legal organ.
Out of state, address known: certified mail or statutory overnight delivery.
Out of state, address unknown: service by publication.

The hearing timeline is longer, too. If the parent or guardian being served lives in Georgia, the hearing can’t happen until 30 days after service. If they live out of state, the waiting period is 60 days.

Updating Your Records After the Order

Work through your records in a specific order, because each update depends on the one before it. Start with the Social Security Administration. Other federal agencies pull name data from SSA records, so updating here first prevents mismatches down the line.⁶ The IRS doesn’t require a separate notification because it pulls your name from SSA, but your next tax return needs to match the name on your Social Security card exactly.⁷

Georgia law gives you 60 days to update the name on your driver’s license, and you have to do it in person at a Department of Driver Services Customer Service Center. Bring your updated Social Security card (or an official SSA letter confirming the change) and your certified court order.⁸

If you hold a U.S. passport, submit a name change application to the Department of State. Whether you can do it by mail or need to apply in person depends on when your current passport was issued and whether it’s still valid.⁹

If you were born in Georgia, you can amend your birth certificate through the Georgia Bureau of Vital Records by submitting a certified copy of the Final Order with a copy of your current birth certificate. The amended certificate will be marked “amended.”

Update your vehicle title at your county tag office with your current Georgia title, your updated driver’s license, and a certified copy of the order. You can also do this by mail with a completed MV-1 Title/Tag Application.¹⁰

Update your voter registration through the Georgia Secretary of State’s My Voter Page. The name on your registration has to match the name on the ID you present at the polls, so don’t wait until an election is near. If you hold a professional license, notify the licensing board in writing with a certified copy of the order. Banks, insurance companies, and employers each have their own process, but the certified court decree is the document they all accept.

1
Justia. Georgia Code 19-5-16 – Restoration of Maiden or Prior Name
2
Justia. Georgia Code 19-12-1 – Petition for Name Change; Request by Victim of Family Violence or Human Trafficking; Notice of Filing; Consent of Minors Parents or Guardian
3
Justia. Georgia Code 42-1-12 – State Sexual Offender Registry
4
Justia. Georgia Code 45-17-11 – Fees of Notaries
5
Cobb County Superior Court Clerk. Fees and Forms – Cobb County Superior Court Clerk
6
USAGov. How to Change Your Name and What Government Agencies to Notify
7
Internal Revenue Service. Name Changes and Social Security Number Matching Issues
8
Georgia Department of Driver Services. Update License
9
U.S. Department of State. Name Change for U.S. Passport or Correct a Printing or Data Error
10
Department of Revenue. Change Name on Title