If you want to change your name in Delaware, and in 30 other states, for some reason you still have to take out a classified ad in your local newspaper alerting the public that you have in fact changed your name. I don’t understand why this was ever a requirement in the first place? Why is it a newspaper reader’s business that you changed your name?
Further, if you could not afford to place a classified ad once a week for three weeks (as the law requires), that meant you couldn’t change your name? Ridiculous. Sometimes, our elders were just legit insane.
House Bill 274 eliminates that requirement from the Name Change process in Delaware. It does not replace it with any other sort of method of publishing requirement. Which is fine, since it is no one else’s business if you want to change your name legally or not.
| House Bill 274 Sponsors | Yes Votes | No Votes |
| Osienski, Baumbach, Carson, Heffernan, K.Johnson, Morrison, Wilson-Anton | ||
| Gay, McBride, Pinkney, Sokola | ||
| Current Status: Out of Committee 1/12/22 |
The original purpose was to alert creditors of your new identity. This was in the days before Social Security numbers. And certainly before data harvesting. Instead of newspapers, court records will be monitored, likely with a fee paid to the court.
It wasn’t that long ago when classifed legal notices were a thing. Still are for certain purposes.