Changing Your Name
MCL 711.1 and 711.3 — a year in the county, a petition, and when the record stays confidential
The family division of the circuit court may change the name of a person who has lived in the county for at least 1 year, petitions in writing, and shows a sufficient reason for the change and that it is not sought with fraudulent intent.
The petition includes any criminal record, including a pending charge, or states that there is none, and the court may check. A false statement intentionally included in the petition is perjury. The court may decide with or without a hearing. If it holds one, it sets a time and place and, unless the record is made confidential, orders publication as the supreme court's rule provides.
A confidential name change. If a petition shows good cause, the court must order that there be no publication and that the record be confidential. The petition states why the petitioner or the endangered person fears publication, and good cause is presumed where either is a victim of an assaultive crime, domestic violence, harassment, human trafficking or stalking, or where the petitioner or the endangered person seeks to affirm their gender identity. The court may not require proof of an arrest or prosecution, and the confidential record is exempt from the public records act.
For a minor, the petition is signed by both parents jointly, a surviving parent, a guardian, or the one parent with legal custody available to consent. A minor 14 or older signs a written consent before the order is entered, and a younger child old enough to express a preference is consulted.
The custodial parent alone may change a minor's name, after notice to the other parent and a hearing, where the other parent, though able to, has for 2 years or more both failed to provide regular and substantial support and failed to visit or communicate with the child, or has been convicted of one of the crimes the section lists.
A married petitioner's order may include the spouse, if the spouse consents, and minor children in the petitioner's legal custody, under the same consent rules for the children.