Adding adoptive grandfather's surname in Texas, USA?

Question

My husband's grandmother married a man who adopted her son, but he kept his original surname.

Due to family issues, my husband was raised most of his life by his adoptive grandfather.

He is wanting to add his grandfather's surname to his name, as a way to honor him, just hyphenating it onto his given surname.

We are in Texas, how would we go about this? It would also be a change myself and our daughter would add.

We have a copy of the adoption paper, but it was performed in Mexico (grandma and dad were Mexican citizens, grandfather was US). This copy is very old and while notarized, has no actual date on it.

We also have certified death certificates for the grandparents that my husband signed, and he is designated as their grandson on these.

With this info, would we all still need to go through the Adult Name Change procedure with the court?

Answer 1

I am not qualified or willing to give any legal advice but I found a website called TexasLawHelp.org that seems to describe the process:

Adult Name Change Forms and Instructions in English and Spanish

Read this step by step brochure if you are changing the name of an adult in Texas

I very much like the idea of people adopting or being given names that honor earlier generations so, if you proceed, I strongly recommend that you keep all the documentation, and write the story down for future generations.

Any future family historians in your family will greatly appreciate reading about how their name came to be, direct from the writings of the people who made that change!