Name change guide

A guide to changing your name because it's an administrative hassle and I wish I had some shortcuts

View the Project on GitHub DuffleOne/name-change

Finance

Needs

Current account

I current bank with Monzo. They’re so annoyingly spoken about at work that we have a swear jar for them. They used to have stellar customer support but now it’s lacking. I could write an essay on it but it’s not appropriate for this site. 😅

Monzo has chat support via their app, I messaged in before I had a signed deed poll asking for them to change my name. Which I knew they supported, but did have a struggle with it as their first line support had no idea what I was asking for. They just spammed some saved-response messages but thankfully someone senior jumped in and helped me out.

  1. Ask your bank if they support a different name on your card or in the app before you change your name legally. Some do! And that is amazing because you need nothing for it and you get a bank card with your name on it!

Once you have a signed deed poll or proof od ID, just send it into your bank, they give you a thumbs up and you have a bank accout in your new name. This is a simple one!

Things to look out for

Credit card

For a credit card, I use American Express. They work well and they have a simple process for this. If you Google “American Express name change” the first result for me was their website. They have a form you fill in. You can find it directly here.

At the bottom of the document it links you to their document centre. No need to message into support, just upload this document along with your deed poll. They’ll email you back in the following few days and get a new card sent out to you. This one was easy because I didn’t even print the document, I filled it in and signed it electronically only.

Services

Here is just a list of services I use that you may want to proactively change your card details for.

Check through what apps you have on your phone, or go through your monthly bank statement to pick out a few in advanced.