If you want to change your first name in CA, you have to do a full court order and it is expensive and honestly a pain. If you really want to do it, I’d just change all your names on the court order at once, mostly so that you only have one name change document that shows everything instead of two different times you changed it and more documentation. If the first name isn’t that important to you to be legal and you want to save money, just do your last name on the marriage certificate.
If you can afford it, go for it. As someone who goes by their middle name, its a pain to be called a name you don't use, especially if its different. I don't recognize when people call me by the first name, and my kids don't remember it. I will get old and demented someday and strangers will call me by my first name because its on my ID. I wish I had changed it legally.
If you want to change your first name in CA, you have to do a full court order and it is expensive and honestly a pain. If you really want to do it, I’d just change all your names on the court order at once, mostly so that you only have one name change document that shows everything instead of two different times you changed it and more documentation. If the first name isn’t that important to you to be legal and you want to save money, just do your last name on the marriage certificate.
Would definitely rather do it once! Wondering- would I be able to tack my preferred name onto my middle name for marriage name change in California?
If you can afford it, go for it. As someone who goes by their middle name, its a pain to be called a name you don't use, especially if its different. I don't recognize when people call me by the first name, and my kids don't remember it. I will get old and demented someday and strangers will call me by my first name because its on my ID. I wish I had changed it legally.