Changing your name back in Georgia

Whether you can get your former name back in the divorce itself — and what it costs in Georgia 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 Georgia-specific.

Restore it in the divorceYesO.C.G.A. Sec. 19-5-16(a)
After the decree is finalYes ex parte motion in the original divorce case (O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-5-16(b))
Newspaper publicationRequired Yes, and it is a real four-week publication. O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-12-1(b), as reproduced in…
Background checkNo No fingerprinting and no criminal background check is required by O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-12-1,…
Separate petition feevaries by countySet locally, so the number depends on where you file. The state pages below name a county example where we could confirm one.
CourtSuperior Court of the county… Venue only, with no stated durational period

Restoring your name in the divorce

Georgia restores a former name through the divorce itself, under O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-5-16(a).

“In all divorce actions, a party may pray in his or her pleadings for the restoration of a maiden or prior name. When a divorce is granted, the judgment or decree shall specify and restore to the party the name so prayed for in the pleadings.”

How much choice the judge has: mandatory on request – subsection (a) says the decree ‘shall specify and restore’ the name prayed for in the pleadings

Who may ask: either party

Ask in the divorce — but missing it is not fatal

The statutory restoration in Georgia has to be requested while the case is open. It is still much the cheapest moment to do it. But there is a way back afterwards, set out in the next section.

If the decree is already final

This is the single most useful thing to know about Georgia, and it is recent. Sec. 19-5-16(b)(1): “After entry of a judgment and decree of divorce, a former spouse may petition the court by motion ex parte to restore his or her legal surname to the given surname as shown on his or her birth certificate.” Sec. 19-5-16(b)(2): “Notwithstanding any other provision of law or order of court requiring a request to be filed or made prior to the entry of judgment and decree of divorce or within the term of court of such entry of such judgment and decree, and notwithstanding that the requested restoration was not previously specified in the movant’s pleadings in the original divorce action, the motion provided for in paragraph (1) of this subsection may be filed at any time after the judgment and decree of divorce was entered. No publication in any legal organ shall be required. The court with or without a hearing may issue an order restoring the given surname shown on the movant’s birth certificate in chambers at any time after the filing of a motion.” Sec. 19-5-16(b)(3): “This subsection shall apply to motions filed on or after May 1, 2024.” LIMIT: subsection (b) restores only the surname shown on the movant’s BIRTH CERTIFICATE. A former spouse who wants a different prior surname – a name from an earlier marriage, say – is outside subsection (b) and has to use the Chapter 12 petition instead. The motion is filed in the county where the divorce was granted; two county clerk packets say to file it with the clerk of court in the county of the divorce and note the divorce civil action file number on the motion.

Authority: O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-5-16(b)

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: O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-12-1 (name change generally, Chapter 12 of Title 19; the Alcovy Judicial Circuit packet notes that name-change cases are covered by O.C.G.A. Secs. 19-12-1 through 19-12-4 and 31-10-23(d))
  • Court: Superior Court of the county where the petitioner resides
  • Filing fee: varies by county – see notes. Fulton County: $215.00 for a General Civil Action. Floyd County: $213.00 General Civil. Clayton County’s own packet states $205.00. (schedule dated Fulton County Clerk of Superior Court fee schedule, footnote ‘Effective 01/01/2019′; retrieved and current 2026-08-30. Floyd County Superior Court published fee schedule retrieved 2026-08-30 (https://floydsuperiorcourt.com/schedule) – it is not dated on its face. Clerks’ civil filing fees are set by O.C.G.A. Sec. 15-6-77 plus statutory add-on funding fees, which is why the totals differ slightly between counties.)
  • Residency: Venue only, with no stated durational period: Sec. 19-12-1(a) allows a petition to be presented “to the superior court of the county of his residence.” The Alcovy Circuit instructions put it plainly: “You must file this Petition in the county where you live.” No primary source read for this file imposes a minimum number of months of residency.
  • Publication: Yes, and it is a real four-week publication. O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-12-1(b), as reproduced in the Hall County Clerk of Superior Court adult name-change packet: “Within seven days of the filing of the petition, the petitioner shall cause a notice of the filing, signed by him, to be published in the official legal organ of the county once a week for four weeks. The notice shall contain therein the name of the petitioner, the name of the person whose name is to be changed if different from that of the petitioner, the new name desired, the court in which the petition is pending, the date on which the petition was filed, and the right of any interested or affected party to appear and file objections.” The petitioner arranges and pays for publication directly with the county’s legal organ newspaper, separately from the court filing fee – Hall County directs petitioners to the Gainesville Times, Clayton County to the Clayton News Daily, Gwinnett to the Gwinnett Daily Post. Floyd County’s fee schedule lists the standard publication cost for divorce and name change as $80.00 through the Rome News.
  • Background check: No fingerprinting and no criminal background check is required by O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-12-1, and none appears in any of the superior court clerk packets read for this file. The Sec. 19-5-16(b) post-divorce restoration forms used by Bulloch and Pike Counties do ask the movant to state on the face of the petition whether he or she has ever been convicted of, or is a defendant in a pending proceeding for, a criminal offense involving fraud, forgery or violence – but that is a self-disclosure paragraph in a locally drafted form, not a records check.
  • Hearing: required

Official forms

What catches people out in Georgia

If you were divorced in Georgia and did not ask for your name back, you almost certainly do not need a full name-change case. Since May 1, 2024, O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-5-16(b) lets you go back into your own divorce file with an ex parte motion, with no newspaper publication and possibly no hearing.
That shortcut only restores the surname on your BIRTH CERTIFICATE. If the name you want is from an earlier marriage, or is any other prior name, Sec. 19-5-16(b) does not reach it and you are back to the Chapter 12 petition with four weeks of publication.
The Sec. 19-5-16(b) motion goes in the county where the divorce was granted, which may not be where you live now. The Chapter 12 petition goes in the county where you live now. They are different counties for a lot of people.
Publication in the Chapter 12 route is in the county’s ‘official legal organ’ – one specific newspaper designated for that county – and it runs once a week for four weeks starting within seven days of filing. You arrange and pay for it yourself, on top of the court’s filing fee.
There is no statewide Georgia name-change form set. The Judicial Council of Georgia / AOC does not publish one. Every packet is a county clerk’s or judicial circuit’s own, so the forms and the fee differ from county to county – always pull the packet for your county.
Georgia court staff are forbidden by O.C.G.A. Sec. 15-19-51 from answering any question about how to fill the forms out. Every packet says so on page one. Do not plan on the clerk walking you through it.
If you cannot afford the filing fee, file a poverty affidavit. Clayton County’s packet is explicit that an approved poverty affidavit waives the court’s filing fee but not the newspaper’s publication charge.
Worth knowing

THE 2024 CHANGE IS THE HEADLINE. Almost every Georgia name-change guide online predates O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-5-16(b), and still tells divorced people who missed the deadline that they must file a fresh Chapter 12 petition and publish for four weeks. Since May 1, 2024 that is wrong for anyone restoring a birth-certificate surname. The new subsection is quoted verbatim in the Bulloch County and Pike County clerk packets, which is where its text was read for this file.

SAFETY EXEMPTION: yes, ONE EXISTS, but its operative wording we could not read on a primary source. The Alcovy Judicial Circuit’s own 06/2024 adult name-change instructions carry this note on page one: “HB 279 as passed in 2017 provides for a separate process when a name change is requested by an Individual alleging to be the victim of Family Violence. OCGA Sec. 19-12-1 (c) (1) & (2). You will need to contact an attorney should you have any questions regarding this law.” Georgia.gov, the state’s official portal, says courts “may waive this requirement in certain circumstances, such as for victims of family violence.” GeorgiaLegalAid.org states that “if there is evidence of family violence against you, the judge may allow you to file your case under seal and waive the publication requirement,” that the request should be made at filing, and that police reports and temporary protective orders are the usual evidence. So: the section number (19-12-1(c)(1)-(2)), the origin (HB 279, 2017), and the two remedies (seal the file, waive publication) are each confirmed by a court or official source – but the exact statutory text of subsection (c), including whether the relief is mandatory or discretionary and what proof it demands, was not readable on any primary source and is not reproduced here.

Recent code editions title Sec. 19-12-1 ‘Petition for name change; request by victim of family violence OR HUMAN TRAFFICKING …’, which implies the exemption was later extended beyond family violence. That extension appears only on commercial code aggregators, so it is flagged here rather than stated as fact. Anyone relying on the trafficking branch should read the current subsection (c) directly.

The Alcovy and Clayton packets also flag a related safety point that has nothing to do with subsection (c): if you live in a family-violence shelter, do not put the shelter’s address on the petition – O.C.G.A. Sec. 19-13-23 protects it. List only the shelter’s name and state, and use a safe mailing address.

SOURCING NOTE ON THE STATUTE TEXT. The Official Code of Georgia Annotated is published under contract by LexisNexis and there is no free official full-text site: lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/ is a JavaScript redirect stub, and the General Assembly’s own OCGA portal at legis.ga.gov is a single-page app whose backing API returns HTTP 401. Every word of statute quoted in this file was therefore read out of a Georgia superior court clerk’s or judicial circuit’s own published packet, which reproduces the statute for self-represented filers. Two independent county clerks reproduce Sec. 19-5-16 identically, and the Hall County packet’s reproduction of Sec. 19-12-1(a)-(f) is consistent with the Alcovy and Clayton instructions. Those packets do not reproduce Sec. 19-12-1(c), which is why the safety exemption is the one item left partly unquoted.

Filing fees in Georgia are county-by-county because O.C.G.A. Sec. 15-6-77 sets clerk fees while separate statutes stack on funding add-ons. The three counties checked ranged $205 to $215 for the same general civil filing. Do not publish a single statewide Georgia number.

A name change in Georgia is filed as an ordinary General Civil Action, not on a special case type. That is why county fee schedules do not list ‘name change’ as a line item – you pay the general civil filing fee.

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://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/ – the official OCGA publisher; cookie/JavaScript redirect stub into advance.lexis.com, returns no statutory text; https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/ocga – Georgia General Assembly OCGA portal; JavaScript single-page app, renders nothing to a fetch; https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/search, /api/legislation/Search, /api/legislation/detail/… – all HTTP 401. Only /api/legislation/document/{session}/{id} responds, and there is no reachable index to look a document id up in, so HB 279 (2017) we could not retrieved from the legislature’s own site.; https://www.southernjudicialcircuit.com/selfhelp/miscforms/namechangeadult.pdf – returns HTTP 202 with a 211-byte body, not the PDF; https://www.courts.michigan.gov/publications/… – n/a to Georgia; https://georgialegalaid.org/ (bare domain) – 404 at the root; the working host is https://www.georgialegalaid.org/ with a /resource/ path; law.justia.com and codes.findlaw.com carry Sec. 19-12-1 including subsection (c), but they are commercial aggregators and are excluded by the sourcing rules, so subsection (c) is not quoted in this file

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Sources last checked30 August 2026
Page published30 August 2026
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