How Changing Your Name Affects Your Credit

One might assume that if you change your name you could start a new credit history. Changing a name sometimes causes errors in credit reporting, usually due to an oversight on the part of the borrower. Name changes after marriage are common. Changing your name to avoid bad credit is illegal and does not work.

Identification

Changing your name has no immediate affect on your credit, because the credit bureaus track most of your financial habits via your Social Security number. One of the most common problems arising from a name change is mistakes by the credit bureau or creditor. If you change your name to a name similar to that of another person, it could cause the bureaus or lender to mix up the files.

Missing Accounts

Even if you use your Social Security number, reporting a name other than your full legal name could cause a lender or credit bureau to report the account on another person's report or not at all. In one case, a woman had excellent credit and several credit cards, but one agency did not report anything for 10 years, because of a slight change in how she listed her first name, according to a 2008 article on the online consumer issues resource, The Consumerist.

Warning

Do not attempt to fool the credit bureaus by changing your name, because they have other means of tracking you. Creditors, for example, often look at your home address. If the lender sees two borrowers with the same address, it could alert him to possible credit fraud -- a felony in the U.S. Even when it is not an attempt to defraud a creditor, using a different name tends to slow down application processing.

Tip

Alert lenders as soon as you change your name, suggests the Federal Deposit Insurance Company. Not informing the credit bureaus of a name change can hurt you if you have good credit, because the bureaus might not report the good accounts from your old name. Also, document any interaction with a creditor or credit bureau to prove your case in a future dispute. Providing proof of a name change, such as a marriage license, probably speeds up a case even if you do not need hard evidence of your name change.