Make your Free Illinois Name Change Petition and Order

This Petition is used to get a court order for an adult legal name change in Illinois. A court order is often unnecessary if you just got married or divorced.

Use the Illinois Name Change Petition and Order document if:

• You live in the state of Illinois and want to make a legal name change, but not because you have been recently married or divorced. See the Free Legal Help section how to get a legal name change after marriage or divorce.

This Petition is used to get a court order for an adult legal name change in Illinois.

When a name change is part of a marriage or divorce, the request is processed as part of the marriage license or Final Decree of Divorce.

The process to change your name in Illinois (outside of a marriage or a divorce related court order) is fairly straightforward given your petition meets all requirements and you are not changing your name to avoid legal trouble. To change your legal name, you must file a Petition for Request for Name Change in Illinois with the court -- you must do this by filing online unless you qualify for an exemption. Once you have filed this request, you should get a court date (if a court date is not automatically assigned, you should request one from the Circuit Clerk). You’ll also need to publish a Notice of Court Date for Request for Name Change in a newspaper in the county where you live once a week for 3 weeks in a row. This step can be waived for certain situations where publishing would put you at risk of harm or discrimination; you’ll need to also file a Motion to Waive Notice & Publication to request an exemption. After the Notice appears in a newspaper for 3 weeks, get a Certificate of Publication from the newspaper and you will then need to file this certificate with the Circuit Court prior to your court date. Finally, once your day in court has come, Go to your court date to ask the court to change your name. Make sure to bring a valid ID and all supporting paperwork including any Judgment for Dissolution of Marriage or Declaration of Invalidity of Marriage, or other papers that may prove that you meet the requirements of a name change in Illinois.

See legal references for a Request for Name Change in Illinois: 735 ILCS 5/21-102