How we verify our data

Legal facts about fees and court rules change, and a wrong number is worse than a missing one. Here's exactly how we source and check what you read on this site.

Only official primary sources

For every legal fact — the filing fee, the court, the publication rule, each form — we cite an official source: a state judiciary or court page, a county court fee schedule, or a federal .gov page (ssa.gov, travel.state.gov, irs.gov, usps.com). We never treat a law-firm marketing page, a form-selling service, or an AI-generated article as the authority for a fee or rule. Every form link points to the court's own PDF, not a re-host.

What we verify per state

• The adult-petition filing fee, and whether it varies by county.
• The court that handles name changes (Superior, Circuit, District, Probate, Common Pleas, or Chancery).
• The newspaper-publication requirement and any waiver.
• Any fingerprint or background-check requirement.
• The official petition, order, and minor/gender forms and their URLs.
• The marriage and divorce paths, and gender-identity privacy provisions.

When we're not sure

Many states set fees at the county level, so a single statewide number doesn't exist. When we can't pin a fee to one official figure, we show the range, mark the page as being re-confirmed, and tell you to confirm the exact amount with your county clerk — we never publish a guessed number as fact. Each page carries a verification status to reflect this honestly.

Freshness and re-checks

Every data-driven page shows a Last verified date, driven by the underlying data — not the build date. We re-verify filing fees every six months and at the start of each calendar year (fees often change in January or July), form links whenever a link breaks, and statutes and processing times annually. When a state's data changes, only that page's date and sitemap entry update. Reviews are done by the Name Change Atlas Editorial Team against the official sources listed on each page.

Corrections

If you spot something out of date, tell us and we'll fix it. Accuracy is the whole point of this site. See the master source list for the primary references behind our data.

This page last reviewed July 16, 2026.