Name change generally refers to a legal act allowing a person to adopt a name different from their name at birth, marriage, or adoption. The procedures and ease of a name change depend on the jurisdiction. In general, common law jurisdictions have loose limitations on name changes while civil law jurisdictions are restrictive.
A pseudonym can be regarded as a name adopted to conceal a person's identity, and does not always require legal sanction. Additionally, there are other reasons for informal changes of name that are not done for reasons of concealment, but for personal, social or ideological reasons.
Read more about Name Change: United States, United Kingdom, Civil Law, South Africa, Name Change On Religious Conversion
Famous quotes containing the word change:
“Oh take my Heart, and by that means you’ll prove
Within too stor’d enough of Love:
Give me but Yours, I’ll by that change so thrive,
That Love in all my parts shall live.
So powerful is this change, it render can,
My outside Woman, and your inside Man.”
—Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)