Legal name

Legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's first legal name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of registration of the birth and which then appears on a birth certificate (see birth name), but may change subsequently. Most jurisdictions require the use of a legal name for all legal and administrative purposes, and some jurisdictions permit or require a name change to be recorded at marriage. The legal name may need to be used on various government issued documents (e.g., a court order). The term is also used when an individual changes their first or full name, typically after reaching a certain legal age (usually eighteen or over, though it can be as low as fourteen in several European nations).

A person's legal name typically is the same as their personal name, comprising a given name and a family name. The order varies according to culture and country. There are also country-by-country differences on changes of legal names by marriage. (See married name.)

Most countries require by law the registration of a name for newborn children, and some can refuse registration of "undesirable" names. In 1991, a Swedish couple refused to give their newborn a legal name, in protest of existing naming laws. In 1996, they were fined for not registering a name for their child for five years, after they unsuccessfully tried to register the child's name as Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, and then as "A".

The Civil Code of Quebec states that "Every person exercises his civil rights under the name assigned to him and stated in his act of birth," and spouses retain their legal names upon marriage. They can be changed, upon registration, only under prescribed conditions, and only where the person is a Canadian citizen who has been domiciled in Québec for at least one year.

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