You do not need to contact us to request a legal name change when you:

• get legally married (if you were born in Canada*)
• get a divorce
• get a legal annulment of marriage, or
• are widowed

* If you were not born in Canada, you will need to Register a Legal Name Change to change your landed residency card or citizenship card.

After one of these kinds of life events, you may wish to use a different surname. If so, you will need to contact various organizations, like your banking institution, Saskatchewan Health or SGI so that they can change how your name appears in their systems.

Please note that you may be asked by these agencies to produce certain pieces of identification or supporting documentation when you want to go by a new name after you get married, go through a divorce, have your marriage legally annulled or become widowed.

If you have a common-law spouse and you want to change your name, you must file a declaration to that effect with Vital Statistics, please contact our Customer Support Team at 1-866-275-4721 for more information.

To register your legal name change on your customer account or on any Land Title(s) you may hold with us, please complete the Individual Change of Name / Client Number form and the appropriate affidavit found in the Manage Your ISC Accounts forms area and return them to ISC’s eBusiness Service Centre.

After I get married, what can I change my surname to?

When you get married, you can change your surname to:

• the surname of your spouse
• a hyphenated form of your surname and the surname of your spouse – note that a surname can only be composed of two separate names joined by a hyphen (e.g. Smith-Jones)
• your pre-marriage surname
• your birth surname

These rules are set out in the Change of Name Act.

Again, you do not need to contact Vital Statistics to change your surname after a marriage.

If you want to change your surname after you get married in a way that does not accord with the rules set out above, you will need to apply for a legal name change.