You will have to get court forms to fill out to start.  You can get the forms online at www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp.htm  or get them from your local court clerk’s office.

Then you file the papers at the court.  They will help explain the next steps.

There also are costs. There are two kinds of costs – filing and publishing.  To change the baby’s name, you must fill out court forms and file them at the court.  The court will ask you to pay a filing fee. If you cannot afford to pay, you can ask for a “fee waiver” form.

Before you can go to the actual court hearing, you have to publish a notice in the newspaper four weeks in a row, one day per week, about the name change.  You will have to pay for publishing the notice in the newspaper and you cannot get a fee waiver for that cost.