Marriage in Aruba; legally changing name in US

[macbosnia]

Hello all,

My husband and I got married in Aruba last fall. It was beautiful and we loved it. Did any of you brides that got married in Aruba (legally, in the court house) have problems getting your name changed upon returning to the States? My Social Security office is telling me I need to LEGALLY get my name changed in the local (US) court house before they'll change the name on my SS card. It seems strange to me that my Aruba marriage cert. isn't enough to get my SS card changed. (And apparently the local motor vehicle admin. won't issue a DL with new last name without verifying with the SSA).

Would appreciate hearing about your experiences getting your name changed.

Thanks,
Mac

[Andrea J.]

is the marriage license/certificate translated into English with the apostile raised seal?

yours is the first time i have hear of any difficulty.

[soxgirl]

I got married in May and I had no issues changing my name. I have a copy of our marriage license translated from Dutch and with a raised seal. That seems odd that you are having problems. You shouldn't need anything from your state. Good luck!

[Arubalisa]

Just thinking out loud here , but you know when you are having problems with customer service in a call center and just cannot get the person on the end of the line to understand your POINT
What do you do
You hang up, call back and try to talk to a different body who totally "gets" what you are trying to say.
More often than not, the "new" person has no clue why the original person did not know what was going on...but they were able to resolve your problem.
Worth a shot?
Social security did not just begin dealing with marriage licenses from international marriages just yesterday.
You just got the wrong person or office.

FWIW, I changed my name through social security via snail mail (USPS) with a Bahamian marriage certificate. I sent them the original copy of the Bahamian certificate, keeping a copy just in case (knowing it could be replaced if needed), asking that the original be returned. Received the new card along with the original certificate back, no questions asked.

[SaraO]

I agree with Arubalisa! I work for a government agency in a customer service call center, and you wouldn't believe the misinformation people get from one operator to the next from agency to agency. I say if you have the translated document with the Aruba Apostille try again and don't give up until you get the right person.

Also there are a couple of other threads on here that might help. It won't let me post them because I am a new member and don't have enough posts...go to google and do a search for : trouble getting name changed with aruba marriage certificate. You'll find a few threads.

Good luck!

[barneynewf]

We got married in Aruba last October, once we received our translated marriage certificate via fed ex (about 3 weeks later), I took it to the Social Security office and had no problem changing my name. Received my new Social Security card in the mail a week later.

[macbosnia]

Thanks so much. I finally went to a different Social Security office and voila! It was a piece of cake. Amazing what happens when you find someone who knows what they're doing!

[Andrea J.]

2 thumbs up for a federal employee that knows what he/she is doing!!!!??

amazing :-)