> Yes, you can legally change your name but it takes a lot of time and effort and could cause you a lot of grief with your family and professional confusion.
It took me 45 minutes at the Births/Deaths/Marriages office. If I recall, it cost $60.
Add an extra 5 minutes for every official form in the future where you have to answer "Did you previously use a different name?" and provide documentation for it. Add more time if your name change happened in a different country and you need to provide officially translated documentation.
And it took me 3 months, $180, and being ordered to publish a notice in the local newspaper who was really uninterested in following through and then charged me another $170 for it.
It's different everywhere and it's usually not easy.
And if I had gotten to choose the newspaper, I would have chosen one that is more friendly and more representative of the local community than the glorified blog operated out of another state that I was ordered to use
It took me 45 minutes at the Births/Deaths/Marriages office. If I recall, it cost $60.