Name Change Advice

Looking for name change advice or some tips for newlywed life? The MissNowMrs experts have created state-specific name change articles and checklists for you. We’ve chronicled our recommendations for how to travel while changing your name AND how to handle voting during the transition.

We’ve also compiled our best guidance for how to handle difficult sister in laws, holidays as newlyweds, the ever-annoying baby questions, and much more. Why? Because, while we are name change experts, we’re also newlywed wives, moms, and sisters.

We hope our name change advice articles help smooth your transition to your new name, and a whole new phase of life. Congratulations and best wishes from the entire MissNowMrs team!

Christine Bleakley Changes Her Name to Mrs. Lampard!

Another woman in the spotlight is changing her name after marriage! Christine Bleakly, a television presenter across the pond, recently married a former English soccer player, Frank Lampard. We just heard the rumor that Christine Bleakley changes her name to Mrs. Lampard after a gorgeous December wedding.

There a several key factors in a woman’s life that influence her name change decision. Age is a telling factor, as statistics show the older a woman is when she marries, the more likely she is to keep her maiden name. Christine is 37, so that would lean her towards keeping her name. She is also a media person, with name recognition. Studies have found that the more a women uses her name in her profession, the less likely she is to change it after saying “I do.”

Christine has a younger sister, and no brothers which is another factor that plays into name change decisions. When women do not have brothers to carry on the family name, they can be more inclined to carry it on themselves.

Education is yet another factor that plays into name change (complicated right?). Christine pursued a degree in politics, but did not finish her college education. The less education a woman has, the more likely she is to change her name. This doesn’t imply that women who change their names are unintelligent. It is more along the lines of women with their maiden names on advanced degrees are less likely to go through the hassle of changing to a married name. If you’re curious how the various scientific factors weigh in for your ideal name change, play the Married Name Game!

The final factor is the one that trumps all others…love. Many a name-change nay-sayer has met the love of their life and shocked everyone (including themselves) by joyfully changing their names. Mrs. Amal Clooney is a wonderful example of a professional woman who changed her name and seems all the happier for it.

While we’ll have to wait to see if Christine Bleakley change her name. We wish the new Mrs. Lampard a wonderful marriage filled with love, happiness, and adventure!

Help Me Change My Name

Make a Difference In the World for Women Entrepreneurs

Hi there nearlyweds and newlyweds! You may not know, but our founder recently wrote a book for women entrepreneurs to help them start their own companies. Her decade building MissNowMrs from an idea sparked by the frustration of her own name-change mishaps into a company with over 500,000 customers gave her some business insights. Add in the fact that she doesn’t have an MBA and was an accidental entrepreneur and you’re starting to see the sort of book she might right. Below Danielle shares why she wrote Elegant Entrepreneur: The Female Founder’s Guide to Starting & Growing Your First Business, and how you can help her on her mission to get more women to startup around the world!
When I wrote Elegant Entrepreneur, my intention was to help women in America turn their ideas into successful companies, even if they didn’t have an MBA. I wrote the book I always looked for when I founded MissNowMrs. A book that gave me the steps to building a business, told me how it might feel during those steps, and offered candid advice and stories from women entrepreneurs I could look up to. I was delighted to help more women startup and scale up in a more elegant fashion than I did.
What about women outside of the U.S.? While I didn’t originally think globally, after attending roundtable talks with women entrepreneurs from North Africa at the Goldman-Sachs 10k women event, I realized that there were so many women who needed my book, and that I had no way to get it to them.
Problem: Many women in emerging economies don’t have access to Amazon or Kindles
Solution: Create an audiobook that can be hosted as an MP3 file and played instantaneously by any phone in the world.
Today am launching a Kickstarter campaign to increase awareness for the need to support international women entrepreneurs and to crowdfund the audiobook version of Elegant Entrepreneur. The audiobook format allows me to donate books to women entrepreneurs across the world without the costs and time delays of printing and shipping books. It also helps women who may be forbidden to read an entrepreneurial book access information to help them build their businesses. My goal is to make a ripple effect of women building businesses and improving their lives, their families, their communities, and their economies.
Why am I focusing on women entrepreneurs? Aside from being one myself and understanding how entrepreneurship has positively impacted my life, a recent IFC study cited by Forbes, found women in emerging markets invest 90 percent of their income back into their families and communities, compared with 35 percent for men. Women in business are the key to ending poverty and inhumanity on a global scale.
She Inspires Her Network, Connecting Founders, Invest2Innovate, and Jitahidi Group have agreed to provide free Elegant Entrepreneur audiobooks to aspiring female entrepreneurs within their networks.
Please consider donating to my Kickstarter campaign. $5 will send 5 audiobooks to aspiring entrepreneurs, and you will have taken part in creating a positive ripple effect. The more you give and the more you share the campaign with your friends, the more women will receive the audiobook, and the more businesses will be created by them… changing lives and communities for the better!

Danielle Tate is the founder of MissNowMrs name change service.

Name Change After Marriage & the IRS 8822 Form

First comes love, then comes marriage, often followed by name change after marriage, and a ton of complicated name-change forms. The IRS 8822 is hands down the form that MissNowMrs customer support receives the most calls and emails about. No newlywed wants to make a mistake involving their taxes and their new married name, but the form isn’t exactly easy to understand (no surprise there).

The title of the form is the first confusing factor. It’s labeled as a change of address form, buuuuuuuuuut if you read the fine print on the second page of the form, it is also used to notify the IRS of your new married name. Why they cannot add name change to the title is beyond us (and yes, we’ve asked for the change).

So, even if you are not changing your address as a newlywed, you should file the IRS 8822 form if you are changing your name. There isn’t a fee to file it, and it provides peace of mind that you have informed the IRS that you Miss YXZ are now Mrs. ZYX and they can send your tax returns to you at your new name.

The decedent question is another confusing part of the IRS 8822. Everyone newlywed wants to know “What is a decedent?” Well, to be straightforward, it’s a dead person. Not something you really want to think about in your post-wedding bubble, but a decedent is important to the IRS. Why? If a dead person has left you money in your maiden name, the IRS wants to keep tabs on that as your name changes.

The good news is that if you don’t have a decedent in your life, you can simply skip that question. But, it is totally fine to feel bummed that you’re not a trust fund kid.

Should you want access to name-change experts who can answer any and all questions about the IRS 8822 and the other name change forms. Sign up for the MissNowMrs online name change service!

7 Tips for Traveling During Your Name Change: MissNowMrs in Travel+Leisure

If you’re planning a honeymoon, you may be concerned about traveling during your name change. We’re all about anything name-change and name-change related at MissNowMrs. And, after helping over 500,000 nelwyweds, we’re name change experts. Sure, we know endless facts and minutiae about the in’s and out’s of the name-change form completion and filing in all 50 states and Canada. But, we also know a great deal of information about how to handle life and travel as you change your name after marriage.

Travel+Leisure recently asked our founder, Danielle Tate, to share some of her wisdom with newlywed women on the go. She provided 7 tips for name change while you travel. The first four are:

Tips to Traveling During Your Name Change:

1.) Book your honeymoon travel in your maiden name. It will take two weeks for your marriage certificate to be issued after your wedding, so you will be traveling with identification in your married name.
2.) The TSA will not accept a marriage certificate as a form of identification. So, bring your driver’s license or passport when you fly.
3.) Most airlines will not update a name on a ticket, and will charge full fare for a new ticket in a different name. If you are concerned that your spouse will make a mistake with your name and travel plans, opt for travel insurance.
4.) If you filed for a new passport in your maiden name to travel for your honeymoon, you have 12 months from your wedding date to file for a free passport in your new name! Think of it as a wedding gift from the State Department.

For the rest of Danielle’s tips please check out the full article at Travel+Leisure here. Happy name-changing and traveling ladies!

Help Me Change My Name

Blac Chyna Name Change: Will She Become Mrs. Kardashian?

The media is a buzz over the recent engagement of Rob Kardashian and model Blac Chyna. To add to an already interesting story, sources are saying that Miss Chyna (aka Miss Angela Renée White) is thinking about becoming Mrs. Angela Kardashian after the wedding. Blac China name change factors are pretty interesting to think about.

A factor that would be in favor of Blac Chyna changing her name would be her age of 27. Statics show that the younger a woman is when she marries, the more likely she is to take her spouse’s name. Another factor tipping her towards name change would be her education. While incredibly street smart, Miss Chyna doesn’t have a college education, and the less educated a woman is, the more likely she is to change her name.

One factor that may make Blac Chyna think twice about her name change is her occupation. As a model and entrepreneur, Miss Chyna has build a brand on her current name and typically women who have businesses tied to their names do not make the switch to Mrs. The Kardashian name is more famous than hers… so we’ll have to wait and see if Blac Chyna opts to become the newest Kardashian (and we’re dying to know what Rob’s mom and sisters think about this possible addition to the clan).

Should Blac Chyna decide to change her name after marriage, we sincerely hope she uses the MissNowMrs online name change service to streamline the process and save her 13 hours of newlywed time.