Squander,

I'll get my Scots legal chums on it and we'll have it all sorted in a jiffy, you just watch.

PG

It's a classic conflict of laws situation, probably made a bit easier by the fact that Scotland isn't really a different country, and the laws which apply only in Scotland are permitted by UK law itself.

The usual conflict of laws problem is divorce. A couple marries in a country which does not allow divorce. While visiting a country which allows divorce, they discover this country will assume jurisdiction over the marriage based on one week's residence; after a week they obtain a divorce. Would a third country recognise the divorce?

Most countries have conflict-of-law rules that would only recognise the divorce if the jurisdiction in which the marriage came into existence would recognise the divorce.

So based on that, I would say that English law probably recognises the Scottish procedure, and your Scot is safe in his name change in England. With the Englishman, I suppose the test would be whether he became closely associated enough with Scotland to be able to claim use of the Scottish procedure: if he actually changed his domicile, I would say yes. If he remains with his English domicile, most jurisdictions would probably say English law still applies.

It just took me about ten minutes to post that: something in what I originally wrote must have triggered Haloscan's SQL injection protection, because it just wouldn't post. I had to delete a phrase which included what was obviously being interpreted as a conditional statement, to post. Weird.

My understanding is that you don't have to use deed poll in England either. You just change your name.

From now on I will be known as Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith. That is, unless some other nutcase has beaten me to it.

Well, someone did, but as it was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, you're probably safe.

Well you might think that in Scotland you can call yourself anything you want, but in practice you can't.

I used a different middle name for a while in the early eighties, which unfortunately got onto my employer's records and thence onto a share certificate.

Endless hassle when I came to sell the shares - "your passport says this, but the share certificate says that - you are clearly a terrorist trying to launder money. Prove you are who you say you are." etc etc to the nth degree.

No, people, just stick with what's on your Birth Cert, please.

And what will happen once internal passports/surveillance cards become compulsory?

No, people, just stick with what's on your Birth Cert, please.

My wife didn't really have that option when she started training as a midwife and noticed that her (first married) surname was provoking unseemly giggling.

Not too surprising given that it was 'Beaver'.

Unfortunately, her maiden name, 'Butcher', wasn't much of an improvement - so she resurrected an ancestral Greek surname just to look exotic.

I'm not sure how she went about formalising the change, though, and she's gone to bed now so I can't check till tomorrow.

From my days at the OPCS, filling in Birth Certificate copies, I can tell you that usually, only your first name(s) are on the certificate and therefore you are free to change your surname to anything you like.

Problem is, the official "name by which you are known" happens to be the one you are registered with at the Tax Office, and other government departments, such as the DVLA, any deviation on this one opens you up to accusations of fraud.

There is nothing stopping you using another name as long as you tell the taxman first, and don't use any other at the same time.

My experience is exactly the opposite: my birth certificate has my surname on it, and the tax office have never had a problem with keeping track of my various names, probably because I always use the same NI number.

No lawyers are necessary to change your name in England and Wales, you can change your name whenever you want. However, banks and public bodies might want some proof that you've changed your name, so to do that, you need to sign a one-person contract, properly called a "change of name deed". This should be witnessed by someone of standing (teacher, doctor - the people who might sign a passport application). However, you can draft the deed yourself, there's no need to pay a company or solicitor for it. There are plenty of templates floating around on the web.

In theory, ID cards won't change this situation. Of course, they will need to be updated just as passports are at present. However, it is likely that ID cards will become the de facto record of a person's current name, so people will only consider their name changed when they have their new ID card... no doubt after writing a large cheque.