Changing your name back in Tennessee

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

Restore it in the divorceYesIn the divorce, on request.
After the decree is finalYes separate statutory name-change petition
Newspaper publicationNot required Chapter 29-8 contains only five sections and none of them requires newspaper publication…
Background checkNo No fingerprints and no formal criminal-history record are required. But Tenn. Code Ann.…
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.
CourtCircuit, probate, or county court Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-101(a)

Restoring your name in the divorce

Tennessee restores a former name through the divorce itself, under .

Tennessee has no dedicated statute authorizing a divorce court to restore a former name. Nothing in Tenn. Code Ann. title 36, ch. 4 (Divorce and Annulment, sections 36-4-101 through 36-4-135) addresses names except 36-4-106(b)(1), which merely requires the complaint to ‘allege the full name of the husband, the full maiden name of the wife.’ The practice rests on (a) the general name-change jurisdiction in Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-101(a) – ‘The circuit, probate and county courts have concurrent jurisdiction to change names’ – and (b) Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-101(b)(4), which carves name changes ‘resulting from marriage, divorce, or adoption’ out of the chapter’s felony restrictions, so the legislature plainly assumes divorce decrees change names. The Tennessee Supreme Court’s own approved Final Decree of Divorce (Form 6) contains a checkbox reading ‘This Order changes the Plaintiff’s name to: ___’ and the same for the Defendant, with no statute cited.

Who may ask: the party changing the name

Ask in the divorce — but missing it is not fatal

The statutory restoration in Tennessee 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

Because there is no divorce-specific name statute, a person who did not get the name change written into the decree files an ordinary change-of-name petition under ch. 29-8 in the county where they now reside. It is a short chapter: a verified written petition stating county residency and ‘the applicant’s reasons for desiring the change’ (29-8-102); the court ‘may order the name to be changed … by entry of record reciting the petition and its reasons therefor’ (29-8-104); and ‘any person whose name is thus changed may thereafter be known and designated, sue and be sued, by the new name’ (29-8-105).

Authority: Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-101 through 29-8-105

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: Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-101, 29-8-102, 29-8-103, 29-8-104, 29-8-105
  • Court: Circuit, probate, or county court – Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-101(a) gives them ‘concurrent jurisdiction to change names.’ In practice several counties route adult name changes through the Chancery Court instead (Knox County and Davidson County both do), so check with the specific county’s clerk before filing.
  • Filing fee: varies by county – see notes
  • Residency: Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-101(a): the applicant must be ‘a resident of the county in which the application is made.’ 29-8-102 requires the verified petition to state ‘that the applicant is a resident of the county.’ The statute sets no minimum duration of residence.
  • Publication: Chapter 29-8 contains only five sections and none of them requires newspaper publication or any published notice. There is no publication step in the Tennessee adult name-change statute.
  • Background check: No fingerprints and no formal criminal-history record are required. But Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-101(b) imposes criminal-record eligibility bars that function like a screen: a person convicted of first or second degree murder, or of a sexual offense requiring registration, may not legally change their name at all; the court must deny a petition it believes involves fraud, bad faith, injury to others, or a public safety risk; and a petition by a person with any other felony conviction is PRESUMED to be made in bad faith and can be granted only on clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. Critically, 29-8-101(b)(4) provides that these restrictions ‘don’t apply to name changes resulting from marriage, divorce, or adoption’ – which is a real reason to get the restoration into the divorce decree if you have a felony record.

Official forms

What catches people out in Tennessee

There is no Tennessee statute that says a divorce court restores a former name. Do not cite one. The name change happens because the decree says it does – so it has to be written into the decree, and the Supreme Court’s Form 6 decree has the box for it.
Fees are set county by county under Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-103 (‘the clerk’s fee … shall be the same as for like services in other cases, to be paid by the party petitioning’), and the spread is large: Knox County Chancery charges $237 for a name change, while Davidson County Chancery charges $159.50. There is no statewide number.
Knox County takes no personal checks and adds a 2.5% service fee for card payments.
Davidson County Chancery requires the name-change fee paid in full at filing – ‘no COST BOND ALLOWED.’
Jurisdiction is by county of current residence, so if you moved after the divorce you file where you live now, not where the divorce was granted.
If you have a felony conviction, the ch. 29-8 route is much harder than the divorce-decree route: 29-8-101(b)(3) presumes bad faith. The 29-8-101(b)(4) carve-out for divorce-related changes is a strong argument for handling it inside the divorce case.
Worth knowing

Tennessee has no safety exemption from publication for domestic violence survivors – because Tennessee has no publication requirement at all in its adult name-change statute. The answer to ‘is there a DV publication exemption’ is technically no, but the practical concern the exemption addresses does not arise. Chapter 29-8 also contains no record-sealing provision for survivors, which means the petition and order are ordinary public court records; that is the residual exposure to flag for a survivor.

Tenn. Code Ann. 29-8-101(b)(1) is an outright lifetime bar, not a discretionary factor: persons convicted of first or second degree murder or of a registrable sexual offense ‘cannot legally change their names.’

The change-of-name chapter is doubled up with birth certificate correction – the same petition procedure is used ‘to change names and to correct errors in birth certificates.’

The statute names ‘circuit, probate and county courts’ but two of the state’s largest counties (Knox, Davidson) handle adult name changes in Chancery Court. Common online advice that says ‘file in circuit court’ will send some filers to the wrong clerk.

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.tncourts.gov/help-center/court-approved-divorce-forms – returns a ‘Please wait while we validate your browser’ interstitial instead of content; https://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/docs/final_div_forms_with_kids_effective_2017.01.01.pdf – same browser-validation interstitial; the identical Supreme Court Form 6 decree was read instead from the Davidson County Circuit Court Clerk’s posting of it; The official Tennessee Code is published under contract on LexisNexis and is not freely fetchable; statutory text above was read on law.justia.com, which reproduces the official code verbatim but is not itself the legislature’s site

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
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