How to Update/Correct the Name in Birth Certificate?

Your birth certificate is a crucial legal document that helps establish your identity, citizenship, and age. Thus, any errors in this document can lead to serious complications when enrolling in educational institutions, opening bank accounts, applying for passports, or other activities requiring birth certificates.   

Now, correcting the birth certificate is a meticulous process and needs to be done under specific procedures. Keep scrolling to find a detailed guide on how to make corrections to the birth certificate, documents required, common issues, and more. 

Changing the name on a birth certificate may be required for various reasons, such as:

• Adoption: After an adoption procedure, the birth certificate of the child should include the names of the adoptive parents and hence the name change might be necessary. 
• Religious or Cultural reasons: Some religions or cultural practices require people to change their names at various stages of their lives, and a name change on the birth certificate might be required then. 
• Change of Gender or Identity: After a transitional surgery, the person might be required to update their birth certificates to reflect their new identities or names.
• Correction of Name: Sometimes, the birth certificate gets printed with misspelt names. Hence, a name change might be required to fix the incorrect spelling. 
• Personal Choice: People can also change their names and surnames when it is not to their liking, if they desire a more or less ethnic name, or for some other personal reason.  
• Marriage or Divorce: Taking up your husband’s surname after marriage or returning to your old surname during a divorce might prompt the need to change your name on the birth certificate. 
• Legal Needs: In some situations, a change of name on birth certificates might be required owing to legal requirements such as immigration, insurance, or inheritance claims.

Changing the name on a birth certificate is essentially an offline process, and the steps are mentioned in the following section:

Step 1: Visit your nearby municipality, municipal corporation, or Gram Panchayat where the birth was registered and obtain the “Birth Certificate Update/Correction Form.” 

Step 2: Contact a notary and ask him to draft an affidavit that states your present name, your new name, and the reason behind changing it. 

Step 3: Fill out the form that you got with proper details and submit it to the court after attaching the affidavit. 

Step 4: Advertise the name change in at least two newspapers, one in English and the other in your local language. 

Step 5: Once the court approves the name change, visit the municipal office and avail the new birth certificate. 

The process to change the father’s or mother’s name is the same and includes the following steps:

Step 1: Visit the appropriate municipal office where the birth of the child was registered. 

Step 2: Approach the government officials working there and obtain the birth certificate correction form. If it is available online, you can also download it. 

Step 3: Obtain an affidavit from a notary that states the correct name of the parents and the reason behind the name change. 

Step 4: Keep all the documents handy, such as the original birth certificate and other identity proofs, along with the affidavit. 

Step 5: Publish the name change in the local newspapers according to the rules set by the state court. 

Step 6: Submit the filled-out application form, the documents, and the affidavit to the designated authority. 

The key documents required for a name change in the birth certificate are:

• Affidavit stating the reasons for name change signed by a notary. 
• Original Birth Certificate. 
• Aadhar Card or any other identity proof. 
• Newspaper advertisement announcing the name change. 

Some people face certain issues while changing the name on a birth certificate, which are discussed in the following section:

• Incorrect or Incomplete Documents: A name change in a birth certificate might require every document you have related to your identity, and hence, even a lack of one might cause a delay in the process. 

Solution: Ensure you gather all the required documents before filing your name change application.  

• Legal Problems: If the name change results from fraud or deception, the person might face serious legal challenges, and the application proposal might be rejected. 

Solution: Consider resolving any pending cases in this regard before applying. 

• Residing State: Lastly, the rules and regulations of the state where you live play a vital role in determining the legal procedure and fees required to change your name on the birth certificate. 

Solution: Contact the local authorities to know the exact procedure.