Ask Me Help Desk - How to change my minor son's whole name

My son, Cee-J, will be 2 yrs old this halloween. My fiancé, Mitchell, has been the only father he's ever known. We have been together since Cee-J was 5 months old. I was married to Cee-J's biological father, whom I got a divorce on the grounds of cruel and abusive treatment, and when Cee-J was born he insisted on making him a junior. Cee-J's legal name is Craig Franz Hurd, Jr. His biological father is Sr. He has used this to his advantage, and has already messed up my son's credit. He is a real scumbag, Craig Sr has 2 other children and another on the way (he abused this girl as well, and she has cut off ties with him and has a protection from abuse)and he has never paid child support ever!! He has gotten very large sums of money from the sale of land his family owned and gotten around paying off any child support and taxes by forcing his elderly mother to give it to him in cash, then he spends it amazingly quick on crack/cocaine and gives nothing to his children. He has not had any contact with Cee-J since June 9th 2007 and he could have visits with Cee-J with a mediator and psychiatrist at Craig's expense, so obviously this hasn't happened. Mitchell and I have a 5 1/2 month old son now, and his name is M-Jay and we really want to get Cee-J's name legally changed to Cee-J Mitchell Ross. It is the only name that he knows and what he calls himself. We don't know how to go about this, Mitchell wants to adopt him too, do we do that all at once with the full name change, can we just change the name, do we have to be married first and do we need Cee-J's biological father's permission for this?? Please help us with any info. At all. Thank you in advance for your help.

Normally you will need the bio fathers permission.

Also just a name change does not change the legal status.
Have you considered a adoption also.

What if the biological fathers location is not known? And yes, we are considering adoption too, but don't plan on marrying until Dec. 08 to Jan. 09. We aren't sure if that plays a part with the "merit to adopt" aspect. Thanks for the help.

If the bio father's location is unkjnowm your attorney will tell you how to go about posting notice of the impending legal action.

Bottomline though, is you need to have a court order the change to make it legal.

I'm also curious as to how a 2 yr old's credit can be runied?

You can change his name when and if he can adopt him. However you have to married in order for the adoption to take place and in most states you have to be married for a year.

Can you prove that the child father ruin your child credit and is on drugs? Is he current with his child support? Sadly, it doesn't matter if the child father is in his life or not a court can force him but it seems in this case it's good he isn't.

As mention above, regardless your going need the father approval. Does he have any family for you to contact to find out where he is?

Quote:

Originally Posted by alisha1280

My son, Cee-J, will be 2 yrs old this halloween. My fiance, Mitchell, has been the only father he's ever known. We have been together since Cee-J was 5 months old. I was married to Cee-J's biological father, whom I got a divorce on the grounds of cruel and abusive treatment, and when Cee-J was born he insisted on making him a junior. Cee-J's legal name is Craig Franz Hurd, Jr. His biological father is Sr. He has used this to his advantage, and has already messed up my son's credit. He is a real scumbag, Craig Sr has 2 other children and another on the way (he abused this girl as well, and she has cut off ties with him and has a protection from abuse)and he has never paid child support ever!!! He has gotten very large sums of money from the sale of land his family owned and gotten around paying off any child support and taxes by forcing his elderly mother to give it to him in cash, then he spends it amazingly quick on crack/cocaine and gives nothing to his children. He has not had any contact with Cee-J since June 9th 2007 and he could have visits with Cee-J with a mediator and psychiatrist at Craig's expense, so obviously this hasn't happened. Mitchell and I have a 5 1/2 month old son now, and his name is M-Jay and we really want to get Cee-J's name legally changed to Cee-J Mitchell Ross. It is the only name that he knows and what he calls himself. We don't know how to go about this, Mitchell wants to adopt him too, do we do that all at once with the full name change, can we just change the name, do we have to be married first and do we need Cee-J's biological father's permission for this??? Please help us with any info. at all. Thank you in advance for your help.

I would go back to Court, either get a support order or ask that the current order be modified and pursue him for support. By the time you are in a stable marriage for a year he'll be thrilled to get out from under and allow your son to be adopted. Then you can change his name.

And now my usual speech - this is what happens when you have sex (protected or unprotected because birth control doesn't always work) with abusive, crazed drug users who have any number of other children and don't support them and don't want to be fathers.

Maybe someone else reading this can learn something.

Scott- A 2 yr old's credit can be ruined when the father has the same name and access to the son's social security number. Also, when the father is a drug addict who doesn't care about a soul in the world but himself, this is the type of thing that can happen. I myself, not understanding that he was a master manipulator until it was too late, already pregnant, locked in the house, no phone line out, never able to be by myself, no friends, being emotionally, sexually and physically abused on a daily basis. Then, after the baby was born HE named him while I was recouperating!!

Sorry, but I don't quite agree with this. Yes I can understand how an unscrupulous person armed with the same name as someone else and having their SSN, can use it. But since a 2 yr old should not be using credit yet, this doesn't matter at this point. It should be a simple matter to send a letter to the credit bureaus, with a copy of his birth certificate pointing out that a 2 yr old can't even sign his name let alone enter into a contract. You then demand that all these entries be removed and that you be informed of any future attempts to obtain credit for that SSN. By the time your son is ready to get credit, his records should be clean.

I am aware of all of the things I can do to fix the credit problem, I just feel that this gives more of a reason to legally have a different name than his bio father, get me here? More of a reason for Cee-J to have the name of the man he knows and has done all of the normal things a real dad would do.

I'm sure you have many good reasons good reasons to get the name changed. But I'm not sure they are enough to sway a court. But the bottomline is you need to get an attorney and file a petition for the change or for adoption.