Free draft · no account needed
Create a Name Change Declaration
What this document does
A sworn declaration about the deponent's name: either that a former name has been changed to a new one, or that two differently-spelt entries in the records denote one and the same person and no change ever occurred. Required by banks, passport offices, schools and employers before they will amend or reconcile their records, and never made to evade any liability.
Declaration
The date you sign and verify it — printed in the verification paragraph. Today's date is filled in; change it if you are signing on another day.
Your answers stay in this browser tab until you continue. Free to draft — you only pay when you send it.
Draft · not yet executed
Name Change Declaration
0/2 answered
What else is in it — 4 clauses, 4 optional
- 01
Deponent
The opening recital naming who is making the statement — name, age, parentage and address. The only clause carrying the deponent's personal particulars, and the one that sets whether the document reads as declared, affirmed or sworn.
- 02
Same person
Ties the two names to one identity and to the records held under the old one. Takes no input, and is the sentence a bank or passport office actually relies on when it decides the two names are the same person.
- 03
No fraudulent intent
Disclaims any intent to evade a debt, tax, obligation or proceeding. Takes no input. Banks and passport authorities routinely refuse a document that omits it, which is why it is mandatory rather than optional.
- 04
Verification
Affirms the numbered assertions above are true and nothing material is concealed, and carries the deponent's signature block. This is the paragraph that makes a false statement actionable — sworn or not.
After it is drafted
Getting it sworn before a notary
If the office asks for a sworn affidavit rather than a signed declaration, this is what that involves: non-judicial stamp paper of the value your state sets for affidavits, the signed copy printed on it, and a visit to a notary or oath commissioner with your identity document. They administer the oath and complete the attestation block — that is what turns a declaration into an affidavit, and the only part of any of this that needs stamp paper. Worth asking the office before you go, since many now accept the declaration as it stands.
Publishing a notice in a newspaper
The Gazette route starts here: a notice in a local paper giving your former name, your new name and your address. One advertisement is the usual expectation, and the notice itself is set in English whatever language the paper publishes in. The Gazette office generally asks to see the original page rather than a photocopy, so it is worth keeping.
Applying for Gazette publication
The Department of Publication asks for the declaration, the original newspaper page, its own prescribed form and a fee receipt, with the fee paid online through Bharat Kosh. It wants the sworn version, so this route runs through the notary step above even where the office holding your records would have accepted the declaration unsworn.
Downloading the notification
The notification is published digitally and comes down from the e-Gazette site. The download is what authorities work from — a passport office, a bank, an Aadhaar update — so there is no printed copy to wait for.
Taking it to whoever holds your old name
Each bank, employer, school, insurer or authority has its own process and its own list, and most will want a copy of this to start it. Where you have obtained a Gazette notification, they will usually ask for that as well. Their own form is the place to begin — this document is what supports it.