Will I have trouble flying under my old name?

September 20, 2009 3:08 PM

I have a new name. My passport is in my old name. I've booked a flight under my old name. Will I have trouble traveling?

Say my name used to be "John Smith". Also say that I recently changed my name to "James John Smith". I have a valid Canadian passport in the name of John Smith. I have booked a ticket in the name of John Smith for travel from Toronto to London, England and back. Will I run into any trouble?

I'm guessing I'll be fine because the ticket and the passport are in the same name, notwithstanding the fact that my full legal name is now slightly different. Just looking for some reassurance. I am traveling the last week in October and do not have time to apply for a new passport.

posted by pantheON to Travel & Transportation (19 answers total)

Yes. I rarely say this with such assurance but in the given scenario, all the documents match. "John Smith" is still legally your name, albeit not technically firstname, lastname. You will be fine. Have a great trip.
posted by jessamyn at 3:10 PM on September 20, 2009

Do you have other ID that shows a different name? I don't remember ever showing anything but passport and ticket, so if those names match, you're fine: no one will even know you have a new name.
posted by jeather at 3:14 PM on September 20, 2009

From personal experience, they just care that the name on you passport matches the name on the card.
posted by alon at 3:15 PM on September 20, 2009

Echoing Jessamyn. I go by Middlename Lastname but my passport has me, of course, as "Lastname, Firstname Middlename." I travel a lot of work. I usually book my own flights but perhaps twenty or so times I have had my flights booked by a coworker under than name Middlename Lastname. Never been a problem.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:17 PM on September 20, 2009

If you changed your name, surely there's some legal documentation of that fact? If it was a marriage, it'd be the marriage license, in the case of a name change, it'd be some subset of the papers you filed. Bringing a copy of these as backup proof wouldn't be a bad idea.
posted by chrisamiller at 3:52 PM on September 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

Thanks to the wonders of international bookings, I have successfully traveled under My-Middlename Imaginary-Initial My-Lastname; an Imaginary-Initial My-Lastname; Lastname Middlename, and even Mr. Lastinitial Firstname, all without too much difficulty.

As long as some subset of a recognizable name is somewhere in the jumble, it seems to not raise many eyebrows. Farm more important is that no matter what the name is, the person in photograph looks like you... which is all that 2/5 of security and customs people care about.

(The other 3/5 only care about what their screen says when they scan or type in your passport number.)
posted by rokusan at 3:55 PM on September 20, 2009

Also, Canada and the UK are saner for travel, in my experience, in that a human being will usually be reasonable when there's some confusion. Most crazy stories you'll hear are about US Customs and security, and you'll be avoiding all of those.
posted by rokusan at 3:56 PM on September 20, 2009

Your passport is the sine qua non of your international travel documentation. If your ticket matches your passport, you have little to worry about.
posted by Neiltupper at 5:40 PM on September 20, 2009

I went to from DC to Germany like that. Absolutely no problems.
posted by marylucycraft at 5:50 PM on September 20, 2009

seconding the advice to just carry certified copies of your name change paperwork, just in case.
posted by thinkingwoman at 6:27 PM on September 20, 2009

This may not apply to you since you will not be flying within the USA, but apparently the restrictions have changed here in the U.S. to require your ticket to be booked in exactly the same name as your ID (i.e. passport).

As long as your ticket has the name on your ID, the TSA won't give you any problems. But if your official documents include your middle name but you don't use it for travel arrangements, you could be in for some grief.

Since you've booked your flight in the same name as your ID, you should be OK even if you were flying through the USA (according to these rules), but just be aware that the rules seem to be changing constantly and may change in your country as well.
posted by ourroute at 6:37 PM on September 20, 2009

Sounds like you'll be fine - but keep in mind that if you have multiple passports, changing your name in one country and not the other is frowned upon - if you are caught with two passports with different names - you'll have some explaining to do.
posted by TravellingDen at 6:48 PM on September 20, 2009

I did this a few times and was super nervous about it, even though my passport matched the name on the ticket (but my name had been legally changed at that point.)

I do go the extra measure to carry with me a certified copy of the name change document from court just in case there was any issue. It saved my sanity even though I never needed to use it.
posted by Lullen at 8:39 PM on September 20, 2009

Passport plus ticket need to match, as others have said. I have flown with friends who hyphenated their names on marriage but who booked the flights under their previous legal names, which were only on their passports, and nobody checked any identification other than their passports.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:32 PM on September 20, 2009

As it happens, I was just getting some documentation prepared for a Toronto-to-US cross-border delivery, and the folks who were processing my ID noticed that my Ontario driver's license has my middle name, while my passport doesn't. Their comment: "Only in Canada. In the States, this would all be kept in sync." So apparently the appearance of dangling first or middle names doesn't faze Canadian officials so much.

Practical value of this anecdote: zero. But since we were on the topic...
posted by bicyclefish at 10:06 PM on September 20, 2009

Further suggestion - keep the ID with the new name separate from your passport (this is a good safety idea anyway, in case you misplace your passport).

The passport trumps all other ID, so few officials will be interested in any other ID once you've offered your passport (a passport is forgable, but not as easily as other ID, and passports numbers etc tend to be checked by multiple organisations within a short period of time).

But in the thousand to one chance that an official casually asks if you've got a drivers licence or whatever on you, if you've got it somewhat concealed (eg in an inside pocket, while you've just pulled your passport out of your bumbag), then you've just got your passport.
posted by jjderooy at 10:42 PM on September 20, 2009

Through both my married names, my U.S. Passport has always been in my maiden name. I just book overseas tickets in that name and use the passport as my ID and have never had a problem.
posted by Cricket at 5:39 AM on September 21, 2009

It will absolutely be fine.
posted by slowcat at 8:37 AM on September 21, 2009

I just did US to Canada using my passport (and therefore tickets) in my maiden name, even though it is different from my married name. No problem. I brought an extra old drivers license in my maiden name just in case, but no on checked.
posted by cestmoi15 at 6:31 PM on September 21, 2009