Changing your name back in California

Whether you can get your former name back in the divorce itself — and what it costs in California if you miss that moment.

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The federal half is the same everywhere

Social Security, the passport, and the order to do them in are identical in all fifty states and are on the main name-change page. This page is the part that is California-specific.

Restore it in the divorceYesCal. Fam. Code Sec. 2080 (Judicial Council form FL-395 is issued under ‘Family Code, Sec. 2080’); chapter is Fam. Code Sec. 2080-2082
After the decree is finalYes motion to modify the decree
Newspaper publicationRequired Yes, and it is a real newspaper cost. Per NC-100-INFO
Background checkNo No fingerprinting and no criminal-history check appears in NC-100-INFO or the California…
Separate petition fee$435.00Confirmed from an official schedule.
CourtSuperior Court of the county… California residents file in their county of residence. A non-resident may file only in…

Restoring your name in the divorce

California restores a former name through the divorce itself, under Cal. Fam. Code Sec. 2080 (Judicial Council form FL-395 is issued under ‘Family Code, Sec. 2080’); chapter is Fam. Code Sec. 2080-2082.

The operative statutory sentence could not be quoted from the Legislature’s own site (leginfo blocks automated retrieval). The Judicial Council’s mandatory form FL-395, whose citation line reads ‘Family Code, Sec. 2080’, states the request as: ‘Applicant now requests that his or her former name be restored.’ California Courts self-help: the restoration is limited to ‘a former legal name (birth name, maiden name)’ – a brand-new name requires a separate name change case.

Who may ask: the party changing the name

Not a now-or-never decision

California does not require this to be settled before the decree is final.

If the decree is already final

California is unusually forgiving here, and this is the headline finding for divorced readers. If you did not ask in the divorce, you do not need a new name-change case: you file form FL-395 ex parte in the court where the divorce was filed, and the court restores the former name by order. No newspaper publication, no order to show cause, no NC-100 petition. There is a filing fee (roughly $435-$450) only if this is your first filed paper in that case – if you already paid a first-paper fee in the divorce, this is typically not a new first paper. Certified copies run about $40 each. Fee waivers (form FW-001) are available.

Authority: Cal. Fam. Code Sec. 2080; Judicial Council form FL-395, ‘Ex Parte Application for Restoration of Former Name After Entry of Judgment and Order’

The separate name-change petition

This is the route if the divorce route is closed to you, or if you want a name that is not a former one.

  • Statute: Cal. Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 1275 et seq. (confidential name changes: CCP Sec. 1277, 1278; Cal. Rules of Court 2.575, 2.577; Gov. Code Sec. 6205 et seq.)
  • Court: Superior Court of the county where the petitioner resides
  • Filing fee: $435.00 (schedule dated 2025-01-01 (schedule revised 2025-03-07))
  • Residency: California residents file in their county of residence. A non-resident may file only in limited circumstances – where the marriage occurred or where the birth certificate was issued – and only when seeking new California certificates.
  • Publication: Yes, and it is a real newspaper cost. Per NC-100-INFO: ‘a copy of the Order to Show Cause … must be published in a local newspaper of general circulation once a week for at least four consecutive weeks before the date of the hearing.’ California Courts self-help adds that the newspaper’s fee is separate and that a court fee waiver does not cover it. Proof of publication must be filed before the hearing.
  • Background check: No fingerprinting and no criminal-history check appears in NC-100-INFO or the California Courts self-help name-change guide. California’s screening is by public notice and the opportunity to object, not by records check.
  • Hearing: not required

Official forms

What catches people out in California

The single biggest money-saver in California: if your divorce is already final and you only want your former name back, use FL-395 in the old divorce case. Do not file an NC-100 name-change petition – that route adds an order to show cause, four weeks of paid newspaper publication, and a possible hearing you do not need.
FL-395 only restores a name you actually held before the marriage. If you want a name you have never had, you are back to the CCP 1275 petition with publication.
The newspaper publication fee is not covered by a court fee waiver. Petitioners who qualify for a fee waiver still get a bill from the newspaper.
In the divorce itself, the request rides on forms FL-170 and FL-180 – it has to actually land in the judgment, so check the FL-180 before it is entered.
No hearing is needed on an uncontested NC-100 petition: ‘If no written objection is filed at least two court days before the scheduled hearing, the court may grant the petition and sign the decree without a hearing.’ But you still have to set a hearing date at least six weeks out and publish in the meantime.
Certified copies are about $40 each and you will need several – budget for them.
Worth knowing

California has one of the strongest domestic-violence publication exemptions in the country, and it goes further than a mere waiver. A Safe at Home participant (Secretary of State’s address confidentiality program, Gov. Code Sec. 6205 et seq.) changing a name to avoid domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault, or human trafficking files a CONFIDENTIAL name change: publication of the Order to Show Cause is not required at all, the court ‘must keep the petitioner’s current legal name confidential’ and ‘must not publish or post the petitioner’s current legal name in the court’s calendars, indexes, or registers,’ and the proposed new name is not entered in court records at all. Confidentiality lasts unless Safe at Home participation ends or the court finds by clear evidence that the allegations were false. Participants in the State Witness Protection Program get the same publication exemption.

You must already be enrolled in Safe at Home to use the confidential route – NC-400-INFO says to confirm program participation before filing. Enrollment is a separate step through the Secretary of State and should be started first.

California does not require the name request to be made before the judgment is final, which is the opposite of the rule in Arizona and Alaska. FL-395 exists precisely for the after-the-fact case.

The Statewide Civil Fee Schedule lists ‘Petition for a decree of change of name or gender’ as a line item but the retrieved text did not show its amount; $435 is the schedule’s first-paper unlimited civil fee (Gov. Code 70611, 70602.5, 70602.6), which is what California Courts self-help describes as the applicable charge. Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Francisco add local courthouse construction surcharges, so the real figure in those counties is higher – the self-help pages describe a $435-$450 range.

court_discretion left null: no primary source states whether restoration under Fam. Code 2080 is mandatory on request or discretionary.

Sources for this page

Sources we could not reach when this page was built, listed so you know what was not checked rather than assuming it was: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=FAM&division=6.&part=1.&chapter=7. – California Legislative Information disallows automated fetching via robots.txt, so Fam. Code 2080-2082 could not be quoted verbatim; https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=CCP&part=3.&title=8. – same; CCP Title 8 (Change of Names) could not be quoted verbatim. Statute numbers here come from Judicial Council forms and California Courts self-help pages, which are primary judiciary sources.

Found an error? Tell us — it goes on the corrections page with the date and how long it was live.

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Sources last checked30 August 2026
Page published30 August 2026
What this means. This is when the sources on this page were last read against their originals — statutes, court rules, official schedules — taken from the date this page was built from its sources. It is not the date the page was last edited. Adding a link or fixing a typo does not move it; re-reading the statute does. Law changes without notice, so treat anything time-sensitive as needing a fresh check. Where we get something wrong we publish it at thecusp.app/corrections with the date, what changed, and how long the error was live.