Mississippi Name Change Laws: Chancery Court and What Remains Unresolved

Mississippi handles name changes in its chancery courts under a short, broadly worded statute. The state publishes no free-standing official online Code: the Secretary of State's Code page links out to LexisNexis Publishing and states plainly that the link is not part of that office. The statutory wording itself is still freely readable, because the Mississippi Legislature reproduces each amended Code section in full in its own bill documents, and this article quotes the operative language from that source.

What follows states clearly what is confirmed: the statute's jurisdictional grant, the codified rule that governs a change to a child's surname, Mississippi's age of majority and where it splits, a significant April 2025 Mississippi Supreme Court ruling on chancery-court discretion over minor petitions, and where this article could not independently verify a fact, rather than presenting an assumption as settled law.

Information last verified on 2026-08-11. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

How to Legally Change Your Name in Mississippi

Miss. Code Ann. §93-17-1(1) provides that "the chancery court or the chancellor in vacation, of the county of the residence of the petitioners shall have jurisdiction upon the petition of any person to alter the names of such person, to make legitimate any living offspring of the petitioner not born in wedlock, and to decree said offspring to be an heir of the petitioner."

That is the whole of the adult name-change grant. It names the court, fixes venue in the county where the petitioner lives, and says who may ask. It says nothing about grounds, notice, publication, or waiting periods, which is why so much of Mississippi practice comes down to what an individual chancellor requires.

The Secretary of State's searchable Mississippi Code is a link to LexisNexis Publishing, and the office states plainly that the link is not part of the Secretary of State's site. That does not put the text out of reach. The Legislature reprints every section it amends, in full, in the free bill documents on its bill-status system, which is where the wording quoted above comes from. For a certified official version, a law library or the LexisNexis-hosted Code remains the safest source.

Filing Fees

There is no single official statewide fee schedule for a Mississippi name change. Non-government aggregator sources report a range of roughly $93 to $153, which likely reflects county-by-county variation in chancery clerk fees rather than a fixed state figure. Confirm the current amount with your county chancery clerk before filing.

Age Requirements

Mississippi's general age of majority is 21, not the 18 used in most states covered in this guide. The source is Miss. Code Ann. §1-3-27, which provides that the term "minor," when used in any statute, "except as otherwise provided by law shall include any person, male or female, under twenty-one (21) years of age."

The rule is split rather than uniform, and the page you are reading should not present a bare "21" as the whole answer. The same section continues: if a statute refers to the ability to enter into a contract affecting personal property or real property, "minor" means a person under 18. Miss. Code Ann. §93-19-13 separately gives all persons 18 or older the capacity to enter binding contracts and to sue and be sued in their own name as adults. Both provisions took their current form in 2023, when the Legislature lowered the age of majority to 18 for loans and real-property contracts (Laws 2023, ch. 507).

Because §93-17-1 sets no age of its own, the general definition in §1-3-27 is what supplies one, which is why a Mississippi name-change petition is commonly described as needing 21 rather than 18. The practical effect for an 18-, 19-, or 20-year-old Mississippi resident is that you may be an adult for contract purposes and still sit inside the statutory definition of a minor here. Ask your county chancery clerk how it handles a petitioner in that band before you file.

Changing a Minor's Name in Mississippi

Mississippi does have a codified rule here, and it is easy to miss because it sits in the vital-records title rather than the name-change chapter. Miss. Code Ann. §41-57-23(1) reaches "any petition, bill of complaint or other proceeding filed in the chancery court to ... change the surname of a child," and it imposes a step the general name-change statute does not.

Under that section, the petition is filed in the county of residence of the petitioner, or in any chancery court district of the state if the petitioner is a nonresident. Then comes the requirement most readers miss: "In all such proceedings, the State Board of Health shall be made a respondent therein, and a certified copy of the petition, bill of complaint or other proceeding shall be forwarded to the State Board of Health." Process may be served on the State Registrar of Vital Records, and the Board files an answer within the time provided by general law. Once the Board receives a certified copy of a decree directing it to alter the certificate, it must comply with the decree. The section does not apply to adoption proceedings. If you prepare a child's surname petition yourself, PDFelement can convert a Word draft to PDF, but the draft still has to name the State Board of Health as a respondent, and the chancellor decides what it accepts.

Two limits are worth reading closely. The provision speaks to a change of a child's surname, so a petition to change a child's first name is not squarely covered by that clause. And the section carries a separate provision for the Tribal Court of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, which has the same authority as a chancery court to make these changes for a person of Mississippi Choctaw descent, while not being the exclusive venue for them.

Beyond that statute, non-government sources describe the practice as: both parents or legal guardians petition on the child's behalf, unless one has sole legal custody, filed in the chancery court where the child or the parents or guardians reside, with a six-month Mississippi residency option available for a child who moved from out of state. The court applies a best-interest standard, at the chancellor's broad discretion, as the April 2025 ruling described below confirms.

The April 2025 Mississippi Supreme Court Ruling

In In the Matter of the Petition of S.M.-B., a Minor for Change of Name, decided April 17, 2025, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed, by an 8-1 vote, a Hinds County Chancery Court's denial of a 16-year-old's petition to change his legal name, despite both parents having consented to the request. The chancery court had cited the minor's lack of maturity, and the Supreme Court's majority connected the decision to Mississippi's stated public policy against gender-transition assistance for minors, tied to the state's 2023 law restricting gender-affirming medical care for minors. One justice dissented alone, arguing the record was insufficient to decide the case and that it should have been sent back to the lower court.

This ruling is described here neutrally, as a matter of reported appellate practice, not as an endorsement of its reasoning. Its practical significance for a reader is direct: it establishes that a Mississippi chancery court retains broad, and largely unreviewable, discretion to deny even a parent-consented minor's name-change petition. This session could not independently locate the opinion on the Mississippi judiciary's own website to confirm an official case citation; the case name, decision date, and vote count above are corroborated by multiple independent journalism sources.

Divorce, Publication, and Other Restrictions

No dedicated Mississippi statute for divorce-related name restoration, a publication or public-notice requirement, or a criminal-history or sex-offender-registry restriction could be located for this article. Non-government sources describe divorce name restoration as available in practice as part of the chancery court's general divorce-decree discretion, rather than a separate codified right the way it works in some other states. Treat this as an area where practice, not a confirmed statute, appears to govern, and confirm with the chancery clerk or an attorney handling your case.

Changing Your Name After Marriage

No Mississippi marriage-based name-change statute was located for this article. As in most states, a marriage certificate is presumably used administratively with agencies such as the Social Security Administration to update records after marriage.

Related Mississippi Records

For related Mississippi record searches, see Mississippi marriage and divorce records, Mississippi court records, and Mississippi divorce laws.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about Mississippi name-change law. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Mississippi publishes no free-standing official online Code, so the statutory text quoted here is taken from the Legislature's own bill documents, and several procedural details described here reflect non-government secondary sources rather than a directly verified statute. Verify current details with your county chancery clerk or a licensed Mississippi attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-11. Fees and forms reflect their published status as of August 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I read the actual text of Mississippi's name-change statute?

The Secretary of State's searchable Code is a LexisNexis link, and the office notes that link is not part of its own site. The wording itself is still free: the Mississippi Legislature reprints each Code section it amends, in full, in the bill documents on its bill-status system, and the current text of Miss. Code Ann. §93-17-1 appears there. For a certified official version, use a law library or the LexisNexis-hosted Code.

How old do you have to be to change your name in Mississippi?

Mississippi's general age of majority is 21. Miss. Code Ann. §1-3-27 defines a 'minor' in any statute as a person under twenty-one years of age unless the law provides otherwise, and the name-change statute sets no age of its own. The rule is split, though: the same section uses 18 for contracts affecting personal or real property, and §93-19-13 gives 18-year-olds capacity to contract and to sue as adults. Ask your county chancery clerk how it treats a petitioner aged 18 to 20.

Does anyone besides the parents have to be brought into a child's name-change case?

Yes, for a change of a child's surname. Miss. Code Ann. §41-57-23 requires that the State Board of Health be made a respondent in the chancery proceeding, that a certified copy of the petition be forwarded to the Board, and it allows process to be served on the State Registrar of Vital Records. Skipping that step can stall the case.

Can a Mississippi court deny a name change even if both parents agree?

Yes. In April 2025, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed a chancery court's denial of a 16-year-old's petition despite both parents' consent, citing the chancellor's discretion to find the change was not clearly in the child's best interest.

Does Mississippi require newspaper publication for a name change?

No dedicated publication requirement was found for this article. Confirm with your county chancery clerk whether any notice step applies to your case.

How much does it cost to change your name in Mississippi?

There is no official statewide fee schedule. Non-government estimates run roughly $93 to $153; confirm the current amount with your county chancery clerk.