Changing my daughters surname

I have looked all over the government run pages and cannot find any comprehensive information. I wondered if anyone here could help me out.
I was with my daughters bio father when she was born, but we fell apart soon after that when i realised he just didnt want anything to do with being a dad. He was merely putting up with us because otherwise his parents would cut his financial support.
So, his name is on the birth certificate, and when my daughter was about 3 mnths old (and ironically, i had just sworn off men for life) i found my current fiance. we are to be wedded in feb 2010, and she has never known another dad. My baby is 3 and i want to change her last name to my (future) husband s as soon as we are married, because i dont want her to know that she isnt technically his until she is old enough to handle the fact that her bio father wants nothing to do with her. he hasnt made contact with her since she was 6 months old, and we passed him on the street when she was 2. he saw me, but he didnt stop or acknowledge our presence.
My fiance and i plan on having more children, and i dont want her to wonder why she is the only one with a completely different name.
So, after that lifestory, how can i change her name without the birth fathers permission? I cant be 100% sure, but he probably wont sign the papers to let me change her name. Not that i wont try that avenue, but i want to know my options before the fact, you know?
Im pretty sure that once my name is changed, i can hyphenate her name at least to include our new family name. What else might i be able to do?? Anyone with a bit of knowledge on law out there??
P.S i know this isnt particulalry "adoptioney", but this is the closest topic i could find to the subject matter.

well i can help.

my daughter is in the same boat
but i didnt have her biological father on the birth certificate, so i added my husband to the birth certificate and changed her surname.
it is a few pieces of paper.

but you will need to get him sign away any rights to her and if you wish you can remove and amend the fathers name to be your new partner if you wish

and to change her name u need your signature and her fathers signature to say his approves and is happy to have her name changed

we filled out a change of name form
and an ammend birth certificate details/father name details form

cost about 250 all up but was worth it

now my DD has her "father" on her birthcertificate and the same name as me :D

she was 13 months old when we did all this.

they changed her name on the birthcertificate as she was so young and nothing was really in her original surname. centerlink and medicare just changed her name and took a copy of new certificate

also if he wont sign, you can take it to higher levels and prove that he has nothing to do with her etc etc and u feel it is in her best interests to adopt your married name.

Thanks.
Unfortunately his name is on the birth certificate, and im pretty sure he wont just sign away his rights cos he is a bit of an a-hole. he likes the control really, he is a bit of an abuser.
We will definately take it to a higher level if he ever tries to get some kind of custody, but to be honest id just as soon live in peace and just use my future hubbies surname in an unofficial capacity. Im sure she will happily change her name legally when she is 15. Im just trying to find out if im allowed to do that. i dont want to keep it a big secret from her, i just dont want her to feel like the black sheep.
Can i hyphenate or just use the new name for school and things without legally changing it?

my friend uses her name ofr her kids even though their names on teh birth certificate are different. but when her son went to high school it had to be as per birth cert, so dont think that will work.

ring and talk to someone. you may be able to hyphinate it i never looked into that

In NSW there isn't any way that you can change the names on the birth certificate unless you have the permission of both parents. You can hyphenate it or have your DD called by pretty much any name but it isn't official. Most schools now have the ability to record a "real" name and also the "preferred" name.

Also, I am pretty sure that she can't change her name herself until she is 18. But then she can do it without anyone's permission.

Realistically there are heaps of kids that use surnames that aren't what is recorded on their birth certificate.

Good luck with convincing your X.

Ok,
For anyone else in this situation:
I called legal aid and he said that in the event that you have no idea where the father is and he hasnt had contact with the child for a few years, contact your local court and the local magistrate will probabloy grant you an order to change the name without the fathers signature.
i have to say that would just be ideal. If that doesnt work ill just hyphenate her name, cos im pretty sure he cant do anything about that anyway.
Thanks for your help!!

A close friend of mine was in the same situation as you, she had 2 kids though. She just used her new husband's name as her kids surname. The were still legally known as the father's surname as far as documentation, bank accounts etc were concerned. She enrolled them in school as their birth surname but they were referred to as new husband's surname on the roll.

These kids are 23 and 21 now and both have changed their surnames legally by d-pol.

yeah,
i think that the only reason i will be able to is because i dont have a clue where he is. And he has not had anything to do with Nicole in years. even then it is still at the discretion of the magistrate. Im not sure it will be different on her birth certificate, i think she will just be issued a change of name thingy.......but i really dont have much of a clue.
If the magistrate says no, ill try and convince him to sign over his rights, then failing that i will just use our new name unofficially. Sounds like a plan to me. But its still almost a year before any of this will actually happen, cos i have to get married first. So ive got a while to work it all out, find my best option.

Actually, in my darkest moments, i considered offering to make his outstanding and future child support responsibilities go away (to my own financial hardship0. Im relieved i wont have to stoop to that level.
Thanks again everyone for the suggestions and info, the mud is settling and its al looking much clearer now. :)

I changed my name to Mums maiden name whenI was younger. We never had to get anything from my dad to let us do it, he is on my birth certificate. I changed what I went by at school when I was about 13 & then when I was 16 I changed it legally. My birth certificate now has my mums maiden name as my name from birth.
All we did was take in a letter from the school saying this is what I have been known by. Plus fill out the forms & pay the fee. Done.

yeah, i read something like that in the legal tomes i was trawling. im not sure exactly what the age is that you can do it, but the way to change your name as an adult is to make yourself commonly known and recognised by that name. I was thinking how the hell do you do that? just ask everyone to call you something different from now on??
Apparently, yes, thats exactly what you do.
So what about people with nicknames more common than their actual names? Should they legally be "fred" or "****" or whatever? It was really confusing.

If you can prove you don't know where the father is and that its in your DDs best interest to have the same surname as you then you can go through the Chamber magistrate at your local courthouse. You will have to go to court but its very quick and doesn't cost anything in the actual court.
PM me if you have questions cause i have done it but don't want to discuss here.

ok. So I has a similar issue when I was younger.
Mum divorced when i was 3 Bio. dad had nothing to do with me.
Mum remarried I took on step dads name. I has everything - medicare, passport, tax, bank records, school records etc in my stepdads name since i was about 8. It took allot of paperwork to get my passport etc as I had to prove I had no contact with my bio dad. There is no way that he would sign over any rights to my step dad.
I went through the process of proving that I have no contact with him, that no one knows me in this name (stat decs, letters of acknodlgement etc) to get it changed.

If you can prove this and if need be to go through the court to prove this, i can't see any issues.

Got it all done now (though through my laziness it took me till i was 22) and name was changed.

I looked into doing this for my eldest DD when I married even before that to my name. I was 17 when I had her and thought we would be together forever (stupid I know) well I enquired about it and they said that I needed his signature (which he refused) despite having $30,000 of maintanence owing to me they said the only way I could change her name was to fight it through court (which was starting around $10,000) and I wasn't even guaranteed to win the argument despite him not seeing her for years. I have let it go and pray she will change her own name when she is older. She hates the fact her name is her bio fathers on her birth certificate. I am fortunate that her name is the same as my maiden name on our mediacre card so at least her medical records are not the bo-fathers and I was able to enrol her in school as my maiden name (the name she has known from the start) I can't cxhange her name legally to my husbands and our other daughter. Despite the fact her name is different on her birth certificate at least I was able to enrol her in school under my maiden name and the name on her medicare card.

hello i was just wondering if anyone could help me. my partner wants to put his name on my sons birth certificate. i dont have the farther of my sons name on the certificate as he wants nothing to do with my son. my partner has been there since day one and thats the only father my son has known so my partner wants to put his name on the birth certificate so i was just wondering if ayone knew how i would go about this as he wants it done A.S.A.P we have had a daughter together since then and she has his last name so we want to change my sons as well so he doesnt feel left out and we want to do it before hes old enough to realise it is different to his sisters so does that have to be at the same time or is it all different hope to hear from someone very soon thanks chels24 if you dont mind could you send your answer to my email add if you have time that is chelseabear54@hotmail.com if not just post it on here

Hey MrsMac?
I am not on this site very often, and i dont know how to PM people. Can i have some contact details? An email or something? I would really like to know how to get this sorted, and if you have done it before im hoping you can give me some details as to how to go about it.
Thanks so much.

alyce you cannot Private Message until you have 25 posts.
my mother had to take it to court even when my father hadnt seen me for 4 years.
he contested it but it was overruled on account of the not seeing me thing.

We changed the girls names when they were 4 and 6..just in time for school, but we did have to get their biodad to sign that this was ok. We added my husbands name so they have both, acknowledging bio dads name but also keeping ours all the same by adding my married name.

Jo