10 Principles for Changing Your Name as a Mid-career Academic

There are several reasons that prompt a decision to a potential name change, with marriage and divorce being the two most common reasons. I did both. I changed my name upon marriage when I was a graduate student and again after divorce as an associate professor. Others may consider a name change after gender transition, for religious reasons, to reclaim ethnic heritage, and for a variety of other reasons. Although changing one’s name has some drawbacks, it also offers enormous benefits to the individual considering this choice.

Changing one’s name is a personal decision. Additionally – and importantly –changing one’s name is not a one-time event. It’s a process. This article is about this process in academia, with examples from my personal experiences. My journey may not be right for everyone, but it is my hope that this article offers others reassurance that it is possible to manage a name change in academia, although the process is at times difficult.

Changing my name as a mid-career academic was not straightforward. This article exclusively focuses on my second name change when I returned to my birth surname, how I navigated this process and the factors that influenced my decisions.

Along the way, I learned 10 principles for changing one’s name in academia. In addition to being useful for anyone interested in embarking on a name change, the principles may be of interest to those who work with, evaluate and create policy for academics undergoing name changes, particularly given the emotional and professional challenges that a name change entails.

Principle #1. You do not need to figure it out now.

Early in the divorce process and well before my name change, one of my friends in academia asked whether I was going to change my name professionally. I had used my married name during my entire professional career thus far. A new name would obviously be a big change in my publication record and professional identity. I told this friend that I had given it some thought and planned to change my (then) married name of “Laura A. McLay” to a hybrid name of “Laura Albert McLay,” with my birth surname of “Albert” as my middle name. Both my middle initial and my birth surname start with the letter “A,” so to many it would simply look like I was spelling out a middle name. When asked whether I was going to use this name for the rest of my career, I said that was a likely possibility. But I wasn’t certain. I only knew where I needed to begin.

Principle #2. You can set your own timeline.

I started the 2015-2016 academic year with divorce proceedings underway. It was a contested divorce, and I did not know when the divorce would become official. I felt uneasy about changing my name in the middle of the academic year because that could invite unwanted questions. I decided to set my own timeline by preemptively changing my name in professional circles before the academic year. At that time, I began using “Laura Albert McLay” professionally by updating my email, website, and curriculum vitae (CV) to this – even though my name had not legally changed at this time. I reasoned that changing my name between academic years would give me a consistent name for the entire year, which would not require students to adapt to a new name.

Principle #3. You do not have to immediately change your name legally when you have a life event such as a marriage or divorce.

The divorce resulted in a court order that enabled me to easily change my name in the following two years. There is wisdom in this choice. The law in my state recognizes that changing one’s name is a big decision and allows ample time to make this decision, potentially separating the time of the life event prompting the consideration of a name change from the time of the actual name change by years. I anticipated that I would take months to decide whether to legally change my name back to my birth name. But the day after I received a certified copy of the divorce decree required for a name change, I went to the Social Security Administration office and legally changed my name to my birth name of Laura Albert. I was ready, and it felt right.

Principle #4. You do not have to change your name professionally when your name changes legally.

I changed my legal name in the middle of the academic year. Doing so was part of reclaiming myself after a divorce, and that part felt great. At that same time, I was not yet ready to change my professional name, because changing my professional name is a decision that, in my mind, carried a lot of risk. I was already well known by my married name and was afraid of losing recognition and having awkward encounters with colleagues and acquaintances inquiring about a name change. As a result, I continued to use my hybrid name of Laura Albert McLay, combining my married and birth surnames, as my professional name for the rest of the academic year and the year that followed.

Managing two names and two identities eventually took its toll, and I desired simplicity. A year and a half later, I decided to change the name I use professionally to my legal name of Laura Albert. The time gap in making this decision gave me the confidence that the risk from changing my name was low. During this time, I transitioned to my “new” legal name in my personal life and was able to see how others adapted. Likewise, I went through a smaller transition with my professional name change (from Laura McLay to Laura Albert McLay) and encountered almost no invasive questions from colleagues.

I can affirm that there is no timeline for when to make these changes. It was a process, and I went through the process at a pace that felt right to me. It’s worth pointing out that this process did not match what I had anticipated when I set out on this journey (see Principle #1).

Principle #5. Updating your CV and Twitter username is the easy part.

The easy part was changing my CV and social media profiles. My legal name is at the top of my CV, and my former name is under it in smaller font. I changed my name before scientific publishing organizations adopted processes to support name change requests, so my publications are under two different names. The list of publications on my CV required some editing to make it clear that I am an author on each paper listed. I printed my names in boldface font in each of my publications to make it clear that I am an author.

A name change required that I change my Twitter username, since my username was literally my married name. Twitter and other social media accounts allowed me to easily change my username. I then created a second Twitter account with my old username to point others to my new Twitter username. Other social media accounts were likewise simple to change.

Principle #6. Updating your scholarly publishing profiles is straightforward.

The tools we use in academia to measure research impact rely on aggregating data according to name. As a result, I was concerned that others would find it hard to evaluate my research impact. Computing an “h-index,” for example, might be nontrivial if the systems used to do so assume that I have published under one name, which in turn could underestimate my research impact.

In retrospect, this was a nonissue. Google Scholar allows users to add publications to their accounts under any name. I was able to easily update my names on Google Scholar, ResearchGate, SCOPUS and ORCID, where I manually added publications across both names and merged author names associated with my publications. I added links to my Google Scholar page, ResearchGate account, ORCID page and SCOPUS author page and to my CV and website so anyone looking at them could find my entire list of publications.

It’s worth noting that these issues apply to everyone, not just those changing their name. Anyone’s name can appear in different ways across different publications. SCOPUS, for example, merges the names for a single author to compute an h-index. This can be an error-prone process for any author, and as a result, it’s valuable for everyone to keep track of their publication impact because it is very easy for these systems to miss a few publications or to add publications by someone else with a similar name.

Principle #7. Universities may not respect your timeline.

I managed two names – a legal name and a professional name – for two years. When I changed my legal name to “Laura Albert” in the middle of the academic year, this instantly updated my name on various university accounts in the middle of the academic year. I understood that internal accounts such as the payroll database required my legal name.

At the time, I was not yet ready to switch my professional name to my legal name on outward-facing accounts such as email and the course management system profile (see Principle #2). My name in these outward-facing accounts was changed to my legal name according to university policy, which requires names to be consistently specified across all university software accounts and profiles. The policy requires faculty, staff and students to use their legal surname on all software profiles, only allowing changes to first and middle names. This policy is inconsistent with Principle #4 by not allowing a legal name change to be made at a separate time from that of a professional name change. Although this would have been an issue for anyone changing their name for any reason, the policy itself felt patronizing and disempowering. Moreover, the implementation of the policy left a lot to be desired. The preferred name I specified in my university account was either not used by some information technology (IT) systems or truncated by others, resulting in various not-preferred names appearing in course catalogs, the online course management system, teaching evaluations and emails to clients.

Despite university policy, I was able to manage my online presence according to my process (see Principles #5 and #6). My department administrator displayed my name on the department and college websites the way I desired, and my department’s IT administrator helped me create email aliases with my old and new names to make the transition seamless and on my timeline.

Principle #8. IT systems are a nightmare.

Changing my name, email and profile in various internet accounts was hands down the most time-consuming part of the name change process, with social media being the exception (see Principle #5). IT systems are not uniformly designed to accommodate name changes or email changes that reflect name changes. Sometimes, old names and emails would show up even after I updated my name and email, because these accounts sometimes pulled my name and email from shadow databases. I still have not fixed all of these issues five years later. A few web accounts use an email as a login and did not allow me to change my email without having to create a new account. Others required me to make phone calls to talk to a customer service agent to make the change and fax a copy of my divorce decree for verification. The divorce decree included many details about my divorce, such as my financial assets and where my children would spend holidays, which felt like an invasion of privacy.

Principle #9. Your colleagues are a class act.

I announced my name change on Twitter and in a blog post, and I introduced a new Twitter username matching my name. I received an overwhelmingly positive response. When I decided to change my name, I was most concerned with my academic reputation and wanted to ensure that my colleagues could find and recognize me. Five years in, I can say with confidence that my colleagues adjusted to my new name, had no trouble figuring out that my name had changed, and can find me online. I expected my colleagues to do their best in adapting to calling me by a new name. I also expected to be accidentally called by my old name for years to come. But it didn’t happen. The transition happened quickly, with my colleagues adapting at once. Almost no one asked invasive questions about why I had changed my name, although a few congratulated me, incorrectly believing that I had gotten married. My name change was a monumental decision that consumed my time and energy for a long period of time. It was a relief to have colleagues react as if it were not a big deal.

Principle #10. Being who you want to be is underrated.

The importance of one’s name should not be taken for granted. Changing my professional name was a two-year journey. When I changed my name, I started a new chapter in my life, and I have been much happier. I was promoted to full professor two years after I changed my name professionally. The promotion committee was presumably able to compute my h-index and assess my achievements. Regardless of the promotion, changing my name according to these 10 principles was entirely worth it.

In the past few years, I have reflected on this process.

We face many difficult journeys during our academic careers. The process of changing one’s name should not be one of them. Those who read this article may identify ways to lighten the load for others who may undertake this journey. Many obstacles can be removed by creating better software design and allowing users to have more discretion in managing their profiles and email accounts. Three possible policies could include (1) adopting generous criteria regarding when and how email aliases can be created, (2) adding entries for former names to software programs used by the university, and (3) allowing for flexibility in the timing of a name change in software program profiles. When issues with software inevitably arise, a single point of contact who oversees name changes at the university may serve as an avenue for support and ensure a smoother implementation of university policy as compared with whomever is on call at the IT help desk. I am heartened by recently adopted inclusive policies by U.S. national laboratories and publishers [1] to allow authors to change their name to claim authorship on publications from earlier in their career. Similarly, many videoconference tools, such as Zoom, allow users to specify their pronouns alongside their names, thereby giving users more control over their names and identities. These are steps in the right direction.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the burden associated with name changes is almost exclusively born by women and transgender individuals. The burden is real. I managed two names and two identities for two years – a legal name and a professional name – which was time-consuming and emotionally draining. I mentally prepared for invasive questions before attending conferences or traveling to other universities, even though these questions rarely materialized. Likewise, the hours I spent researching what a name change would look like, how to ensure my h-index could be accurately computed, and changing my name and email associated with a large number of web accounts is time that I would have preferred to spend with my family or on scholarship.

Although I would characterize the process of changing one’s name as difficult but doable, I acknowledge that the path may be more difficult for others. Many may be more accepting of a name change due to a divorce than for marriage, since many in academia view name changes as optional for women getting married, and for transgender individuals who change their names.

While the process of changing my name was trying at times, I learned that having the name I want is important to my identity. Changing my name was a worthwhile endeavor, and I am glad I did it. My hope is that these 10 principles help others have similarly fulfilling name-change journeys.

Reference

1. https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2021/07/28/transgender-inclusive-name-change-process-for-published-papers/