By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Keoni Kealoha Agard visited Pu'u O Mahuka heiau in
Pupukea to ask permission of his ancestors to change his name.
His given name, listed in his college yearbook, below,
was John Agard.

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Name Change

More than 1,000 isle residents
each year decide their names
just don't suit them

By Kekoa Catherine Enomoto
Star-Bulletin

A different name, like spring, is a new beginning.

One in a thousand isle residents greets spring with a new legal name. So says the lieutenant governor's office, which oversees these matters.

Spokeswoman Kelli Abe Trifonovitch said 1,197 people made legal name changes in 1996, 1,168 in 1977.

The most common reason is that individuals don't like the name they're given at birth, Trifonovitch said. Surprisingly, the trend is for women who had elected to keep their maiden names upon marriage, to later take their husband's surnames. Not surprisingly, divorcees return to their maiden names.

Other name-change reasons:

Naturalized citizens want "American" names.

Older people want state IDs with the American names they were given in school instead of the names on their birth certificates.

A child is adopted.

Correcting misspellings and other errors.

The process of legally changing a name is like doing taxes; it involves documents, paperwork and money. You must supply documents such as a birth certificate, marriage license, divorce decree, adoption decree, guardianship documents, name-change decree, paternity documents, original naturalization certificate or alien card, and/or foreign birth certificate with an English translation.

Then, there are six pages of instructions to read and seven pages of paperwork to fill out.

Finally, you must pay an estimated total of $150 to $250: for filing fee ($50), documents ($10 for a birth certificate at the state Department of Health), publishing in a general-circulation newspaper of choice ($89.99 at the Star-Bulletin), and Bureau of Conveyance change ($25).

This cost estimate doesn't include postage -- plus, in many cases, a copy of the official "Notice of Name Change" -- to change the records of banks, credit cards, dentist, doctor, driver's license, family, friends, general excise license, schools, Social Security card, taxes and telephone book.

One of the most troublesome hurdles is the birth certificate, which must be certified no more than 90 days before submission. People want to know, "Why can't I use my original certificate that was issued at birth?" Trifonovitch said.

The answer is that a long-standing statute requires a recently certified birth certificate for the purpose of public notice. "It's part of gathering all the information about a person -- whatever has been done in the name-change history, including divorce decrees and a number of other needed pieces of documentation," Trifonovitch said.

Stephanie Cook of Kailua stumbled at the birth-certificate hurdle when she, her husband and their three children legally changed their surname 15 months ago.

"We submitted the children's birth certificates and then a month later they all came back," she recalled of the process, which took more than a year and $1,000. "So we had to write letters to three counties not in Hawaii, send them money and wait for them to mail the documents -- that alone cost over $100.

"It took a lot longer in Social Security," she added. "We had to mail it into the federal government. It was kind of a hassle because for maybe a year the names overlapped and the government acted as if we were two different families."

The process so overwhelmed the Cooks that they enlisted help.

"We tried on our own," she recalled. "We called the number and they gave us all the papers. We tried to fill them out but, 'Omigosh, what does it say?' It was so confusing for five people. In turn, we decided to get a lawyer and to pay him."

After the maze of documents, paperwork and money comes adjustment.

"Then there's the hassle of telling everybody your new name," said Cook, who asked that her family's previous surname not be mentioned.

"They all want to know why. It's a personal reason and we don't really want to get into it; so they make the wrong assumptions. Very simply, there was a misunderstanding and we've corrected it. People always want to know more -- but for us it was a very personal issue."

Spring turns to summer, when flowers turn to fruit.

For Cook, the name change was "like starting fresh, which in a way can be very nice. And now it's," she paused, "it is funny because at this point we're so comfortable with the name Cook, when individuals who haven't been around call us by the old name, we turn around. 'What? You talking to me? What's up?' "