Can you legally change a child's last name to your last name without adopting them

Yes, if the other parent or a court agrees to it.

If you change the child's last name to yours, are you then legally or financially responsible

If you've adopted the child, then yes.

Why would you want to change a child's name WITHOUT taking responsibility for the child?

Can you legally change a child's last name to your last name without being legally and/or financially responsible

If your married to a child's mother and want to change that child last name to yours can you do that without being legally or financially responsible for that child

My husband is paying child support on a child that assumed its mother last name at birth... the mother has married another man and now that child is going by her husbands last name... is my husband still legally & financially responsible

My husband is paying child support on a child that assumed its mother's last name at birth.. they were not married then. Now that same child's mother has married a different man and this child now goes by his last name... is my husband still responsible legally & financially

Would you like to clarify your question? Who are you and what role you have been playing in the child's life?

If you do not have legal rights then you cannot take any legal actions.

Please do not open several threads

LOL-THIRD QUESTION WITH THE SAME SUBJECT!
Firstly-the mother cannot change the child's last name without your husband's agreement/ or Court order based on the principle of Best interest/
2 Your husband is and will be financially responsible notwithstanding what the child's last name is.

First, please stop starting new threads. If you have a follow-up question then respond to this thread. I've merged all your other threads.

Second. A person can go by any name they want unless there is an intent to defraud. However a person's legal name can only be changed by court order. So its probable that the child's mother is just using her new married name and hasn't changed the child's name legally.

Third. It doesn't matter what name the child is using the responsibility of the father to pay support wouldn't change. What matters is what court orders are in place. Your husband, can actually go to the school and demand that they use the child's legal name.

To clarify things, even though the child is my husbands, the child had his mothers last name at birth. The mother married another man & after years of my husband paying child support, he found out that the child's last name had been changed to his mothers married name(her new husbands last name). Does my husband have to continue his child support now?

I already answered this: "it doesn't matter what name the child is using the responsibility of the father to pay support wouldn't change". Was that not clear enough?

But my question to you is; how does he know about the name change? Again its not likely to have been a legal name change since he wasn't consulted. And if it they snuck a legal name change behind his back, it wouldn't affect his obligation for support.

The ONLY way he gets out of paying support is if the new husbands adopts and he would have to agree to that.

So, what he can do, is check with the local courts to see if any legal name change or adoption was granted. If a name change was granted, he can ask that it be vacated because he wasn't consulted. However, since the child's last name was never his, I doubt if a court entertain his objection.

However, if an adoption was granted and he was not contacted, he can get the adoption overturned. But the sense I'm getting from you is he wants out of support. So an adoption is what he wants. So if he finds an adoption was granted, then he sues the mother for the return of any child support that was paid after the adoption took place.

But, as a I said, I doubt if anything more is going on here than the child using her step father's name and not a legal change. And there is nothing your husband can do about that.

Yes,of course! Why do you think he can stop his support obligation?