How we verify our guidance

About My New Surname

My New Surname provides Name & Next, an online name-change service for supported post-marriage updates, and Name Day, the gift that includes the same product. Name & Next brings together official forms and services, preparation, fees and next steps in a personalized workspace. Customers complete their own updates.

Your state, relevant records, circumstances and reported progress shape the help you see. The supported scenario and current states are listed below. Starting after a pause does not require starting every update again.

See what Name & Next provides

Where the guidance comes from

For state and federal steps, we use information published by the agency responsible for that record.

That includes sources for things like driver’s licenses and IDs, vehicle records, voter registration, Social Security, and passports.

Banks, employers, insurers, licensing organizations, and other private institutions can set their own requirements. We distinguish those from government procedure.

How to read the state reference

The state reference and guides bring together the public facts used in our state guidance. Each topic identifies its responsible agency and the date its source was reviewed. A state profile review and a later review of one source are different dates. Neither means that every fact was checked again today.

A required update, a recommended wait, and a condition that applies only to one route are labeled separately. If we have not confirmed a deadline or procedure in the reviewed source, we say so. That does not mean there is no deadline or requirement.

The cost examples use a stated credential and certificate route. A driver license benchmark is not a quote for every identity card, county, or application. Our summaries organize the source material; the receiving agency’s current instructions control your application.

33 states are currently covered.

Most recent state profile review: October 12, 2026.

Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin

See currently covered states

The useful detail, where you need it

Each government update brings its official materials or service together with preparation, relevant fees and a next step. A condition that changes the route, cost or timing stays beside the action it affects. Sources and review details remain available in a separate disclosure.

An unanswered question is not treated as a “no.” Where an institution must confirm its own process, we explain what to ask and what you can prepare. Your progress records what you report; it does not verify that an agency accepted an application.

How we decide what to publish

We use official sources

Government requirements are tied to information published by the responsible agency, not to aggregator sites or secondary summaries.

We show when we checked

Guidance carries substantive review dates. A review date records a check of the underlying guidance, not simply a page edit or a working link.

We don’t invent missing details

We publish a fee, processing time, or form number only when the responsible agency publishes it. If the official source doesn’t say, we don’t guess.

We separate government rules from practical reminders

Some steps in your plan are organizational reminders or depend on a private institution. We don’t present those as government requirements.

We correct things against the source

If someone reports something that looks wrong, we check the official source before changing the guidance.

What we cover today

My New Surname currently supports people who:

live in a covered state
have a marriage recorded in the United States
are U.S. citizens
are taking their spouse’s current last name unchanged
are changing their own adult name
have, or expect to receive, a certified marriage certificate

What we don’t cover yet

We do not currently build plans for:

custom court-ordered name changes
divorce or name reversion
adoption-related name changes
children’s name changes
immigration-related name-change routes
hyphenated, blended, or newly created surnames
states whose guidance has not passed our review

My New Surname also does not provide legal advice or file government paperwork.

What we don’t promise

Official requirements can change, sometimes without notice.

We cannot promise how an agency or institution will decide a particular request. Their current instructions always control.

What we can promise is that we won’t fill gaps with invented certainty.

Found something that doesn’t look right?

Tell us the state and the step.

We’ll check it against the official source and correct it if needed.

Report a correction