Changing your name back in Hawaii

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

Restore it in the divorceYesHaw. Rev. Stat. § 574-5(a)
After the decree is finalYes separate statutory name-change petition
Newspaper publicationRequired Yes. HRS 574-5(c)-(d)
Background checkNo No fingerprinting or criminal history check appears in HRS 574-5 or in the Lieutenant…
Separate petition fee$56.00Confirmed from an official schedule.
CourtNone Where a standalone petition is filed.

Restoring your name in the divorce

Hawaii restores a former name through the divorce itself, under Haw. Rev. Stat. § 574-5(a).

HRS 574-5(a) makes it ‘unlawful to change any name adopted or conferred under this chapter, except’ in listed circumstances, one of which is a decree of the family court in an adoption, divorce, or minor name-change proceeding. In the divorce context the operative language is that either party may ‘resume the middle name or names and the last name used by the party prior to the marriage or civil union.’ The Lieutenant Governor’s official name-change instructions confirm the practical effect: ‘If your divorce decree specifies resumption of a maiden or previous name, a name change is not necessary.’

How much choice the judge has: not verified – the text of HRS 574-5(a) that was retrievable does not state a standard the family court must apply; it simply lists a divorce decree as a lawful route to a name change

Who may ask: either party

Ask in the divorce — but missing it is not fatal

The statutory restoration in Hawaii 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

If the divorce decree did not order restoration, Hawaii does not send you back to the family court – it sends you to an executive-branch petition. You file a notarized Petition for Change of Name with the Office of the Lieutenant Governor (online or by mail), and the official instructions direct divorced applicants to include their divorce decree with the application. Once the Lieutenant Governor signs the Notice of Change of Name, you must get it published and file the affidavit of publication within 60 days or the petition is automatically void.

Authority: Haw. Rev. Stat. § 574-5(a)(1) and (b)-(d) (petition to the Lieutenant Governor)

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: Haw. Rev. Stat. § 574-5
  • Court: None – Hawaii’s adult name change is an administrative proceeding before the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, not a court case (Haw. Rev. Stat. § 574-5(b))
  • Filing fee: $56.00
  • Publication: Yes. HRS 574-5(c)-(d): the $50 filing fee accompanies the petition, and the notice of change of name ‘shall be published once in a newspaper of general circulation,’ with an affidavit of publication filed within sixty days. The Lieutenant Governor’s instructions say publication is through the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and that failure to publish within 60 days of the date the Notice was signed ‘will automatically void your Petition for Change of Name.’ There is also a $41.00 Bureau of Conveyances recording fee and separate publication costs on top of the $56.00 filing package. SAFETY EXEMPTION: HRS 574-5(e) is the only exemption, and it is not self-executing for domestic violence survivors – it requires ‘an affidavit executed by a prosecuting attorney of this State’ showing that for the protection of the petitioner, publication in a newspaper and recordation in the bureau of conveyances ‘shall not be necessary,’ in which case ‘the petition, affidavit, and order shall be kept confidential.’ A survivor cannot invoke this on their own; a prosecutor must sign the affidavit.
  • Background check: No fingerprinting or criminal history check appears in HRS 574-5 or in the Lieutenant Governor’s official instructions. There is a separate bar: ‘no person who is a covered offender subject to the registration requirements of section 846E-2 may obtain a name change’ by petition to the Lieutenant Governor unless a court finds it is in the best interest of justice and will not adversely affect public safety.
  • Hearing: not required

Official forms

What catches people out in Hawaii

Getting the restoration into the divorce decree is by far the cheaper path – the standalone route costs $56 in filing fees plus newspaper publication plus a $41 Bureau of Conveyances recording fee.
The 60-day publication clock runs from the date the Lieutenant Governor signed your Notice, not from the date you filed. Miss it and the petition is void and the fees are non-refundable.
All fees are expressly non-refundable, including if your petition is denied.
Hawaii’s publication waiver requires a prosecuting attorney to sign an affidavit for you. A domestic violence survivor with a protective order but no prosecutor involvement has no statutory way to skip publication.
Worth knowing

Hawaii is the outlier in this batch: an adult name change is not a court case at all. It is an administrative petition to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor.

Hawaii’s only publication exemption runs through a prosecuting attorney’s affidavit (HRS 574-5(e)), which is a witness-protection style mechanism, not a domestic-violence survivor exemption. Many online guides describe this as a general ‘safety waiver’; it is not.

Chapter 580 (Annulment, Divorce, and Separation) contains no name-change section. The authority sits entirely in Chapter 574.

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov returned 403 to automated retrieval; the statutory text was read from the Legislature’s own data.capitol.hawaii.gov chapter PDF (2017 compilation). The provisions quoted are corroborated by the Lieutenant Governor’s current official instructions, but a reader should confirm against the current HRS before relying on subsection lettering.

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.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/vol12_ch0501-0588/HRS0574/HRS_0574-0005.htm (403); https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol12_Ch0501-0588/HRS0574/HRS_0574-0006.HTM (403)

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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.