passports/married & maiden names
 

Quick question: Have a friend that is getting married in summer 2006. She needs to apply for her passport for her homeymoon now which will be in her maiden name. That passport will be good for 10 years, but she will have a new name in six months. Is there a way that she can amend her passport without having to purchase a whole new one?
Thanks much, Lisa S

You have a few answers to this on the European forum, but in essence she would need to apply for her passport in her maiden name and then change it (which is free of charge) after she is married and officially/legally changes to her married name.

She also needs to be sure to book her airfare/tickets, etc. in her maiden name if that is the name that will be on her passport for honeymoon travel. In other words, the ticket issued name and passport name must match.

Go to this website and there are instructions as to how to amend or change a name on the passport.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/fri...amend_851.html

Agree that the honeymoon tickets must have maiden name on them - but once the marriage license comes you fill out a form and send it in and voila - passport is fixed.

does she have to change her name ? lots of people don't.

I just sent in my passport and marriage license to have my name changed to my married name. It is called a validation and they add the name change to inside of the back cover and it comes laminated like the front page that has the photo. Your friend can print off the form from the internet (someone posted the link above) and will need to send her original marriage license to the address listed on the form. There is no fee unless you want it rushed. I sent mine Fedex with a pre-paid Fedex envelope for them to send it back to me in so that it could be tracked.

I'm with curiousx on this one. Encourage her not to change her name. Or if she and her husband must have the same last name, suggest that he change his. I always love hearing guys' reaction to this suggestion. ;)

ejcrowe, here's a new one on that idea. When my husband and I were granted our Dutch EU citizenship, he had to have MY maiden name on his Dutch passport. :D

Loves it !!! Happily and stubbornly still a MacLeod !!!

Statia,

You provided my smile of the day !

Back in the *olden* days of 1968, when I was married, I kept my name and added his ;-) No hyphen, just aiming for some equality and personal identity. I think, back then, I was called a "women's libber" :-) and it was usually uttered with gutteral tone !

Marion

faithie and Marion, I can relate. When we married, I kept my maiden name and hyphenated it with my married name. I, too, didn't want to lose my identity. The problem is that both names are eight letters each, so official documents can be quite a burden to sign. Arrrgghh. I sometimes wonder what I was thinking. :)

But, I did get a good laugh when we got our Dutch passports and I saw my maiden name on his passport. I told him, "See...I knew I get you to take my name somehow, some way, some day." :)

I love it, y'all. I'm going to raise my glass tonight to Faithie, Marion and Statia, some of my favorite women.

Statia, did the Dutch government give any reasoning behind your husband having to take your maiden name? Is that SOP? Were the two of you a special case?

Nothing special in our case, ejcrowe. It's SOP for everyone. Both last names have to be on both passports for married citizens.

Statia, that seems eminently reasonable to me. BTW, I thought of you last week as I was flying over your island to get to Antigua. Hope all is well down in your part of the world.

Everything is good here, ejcrowe. Hope you had a great trip to Antigua!