Taking a married name on a USCIS marriage-based immigration application

When requesting immigration benefits, generally, a married applicant may provide a copy of their marriage certificate and indicate their current legal name on the forms as any of the following:

1. Their pre-marriage name (ex. Jane Doe)
2. Taking their spouse’s surname (ex. Jane Smith)
3. Taking a hyphenated version of their pre-marriage name and their spouse’s surname.(ex. Jane Doe-Smith)

Typically, any other name changes, such as changing a first or middle name, etc., will require documented proof of a prior legal name change in addition to the marriage certificate. Should an applicant wish to include such a legal name change, they would need to wait to complete that process before moving forward with their immigration applications. In addition, the ability to change names after marriage varies according to the laws and regulations in each country or state, and applicants should review the changes needed for a legal name change in their area.

Please Note: Changing an applicant’s name on the green card may mean that other documentation, such as driver's license, passport, social security cards, etc., do not match. As applicants pursue legal name changes on those documents, in many circumstances, when using documents where the legal names do not match, they may use their marriage certificate as proof of a name change.