How to Change Your Name Legally in Kerala (2026)

Video guide

Watch: Name Change Procedure in Kerala Explained in Hindi

A quick walkthrough of the Kerala gazette office, its address and how the name change process works.

This video walks through the name change procedure in Kerala step by step in Hindi: the notarised affidavit, the two newspaper ads, the gazette office and notification, and how name correction works, matching the exact steps in this guide.

Changing your name is a big step. Maybe you just got married, you are fixing a spelling mistake in your school certificate, or you want a fresh start after a divorce. Whatever the reason, the name change procedure in Kerala follows a clear legal path, and Kerala gives you two options, its own State Gazette and the Central Gazette. This guide breaks down every step in plain words, and shows how to get it done from home, whether you live in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Kozhikode, Thrissur or Kollam, or work abroad in the Gulf.

Name change procedure in Kerala: affidavit, newspaper ad and Kerala Gazette notification steps

Quick Answer

To change your name in Kerala, make a notarised affidavit, publish the change in two newspapers (one English, one Malayalam), then file for a gazette notification. The exact affidavit and advertisement wording is printed below. You can use the Kerala State Gazette through the Government Central Press (online at compose.kerala.gov.in), or the Central Gazette (Rs 1,100 adult, Rs 1,700 minor) for pan-India and overseas use. The state gazette often publishes in 2 to 4 weeks, and it can all be done from home.

Definition: A gazette notification is an official notice published in the Government Gazette that turns your name change into a public, legally recognised record, accepted by the passport office, banks, UIDAI and government departments across India.

Kerala name change at a glance

Steps: Affidavit → newspaper ad → gazette notification
Two routes: Kerala State Gazette or Central Gazette
State office: Government Central Press, Thiruvananthapuram
Central fee: Rs 1,100 adult, Rs 1,700 minor (BharatKosh)
Time: State ~2 to 4 weeks, Central ~30 to 45 days
Newspapers: One English + one Malayalam daily

Key takeaways

The process has three steps: notarised affidavit, newspaper ad, then gazette notification.
Kerala runs its own State Gazette through the Government Central Press (Directorate of Printing), which accepts private name change ads.
The Kerala citizen gazette service is also online at compose.kerala.gov.in for name, religion, gender and caste changes.
Any Kerala resident can also use the Central Gazette, valid all over India and abroad, best for passports and Gulf jobs.
Central Gazette fee: Rs 1,100 adult, Rs 1,700 minor, paid online on BharatKosh.
Newspapers needed: one English paper and one Malayalam paper.
A birth certificate spelling fix goes through the local Registrar (RBD Act) and needs no gazette at all.

Choose the right route

Kerala State Gazette vs Central Gazette

This is the choice that matters most, and Kerala is well set up for it. The State Gazette is run by the Government Central Press in Thiruvananthapuram and accepts private name change advertisements, now also online. The Central Gazette is run by the Government of India in Delhi and is the standard for passports and work abroad.

Point	Kerala State Gazette	Central Gazette of India
Run by	Government Central Press (Directorate of Printing), Thiruvananthapuram	Department of Publication, Government of India, Delhi
How you apply	Prescribed form at the Central Press or District Forms Offices, or online at compose.kerala.gov.in	File sent to Civil Lines, Delhi, by post, courier or in person
Government fee	Modest advertisement fee plus cost of gazette (eTreasury)	Rs 1,100 adult, Rs 1,700 minor (BharatKosh)
Speed	Often 2 to 4 weeks	About 30 to 45 days
Valid for	Records within Kerala	All of India and abroad
Best for	A cheaper state-level record	Passport, PAN, banks, PSU jobs, Gulf and abroad

Simple rule: if your new name is mainly for records inside Kerala, the State Gazette is quick and affordable. If it has to work on a passport, a central job or a Gulf visa, use the Central Gazette from the start, so you do not have to repeat the process.

Living near a border, or moving for work? The Central Gazette route is identical across the region. See our Karnataka guide for the northern neighbour, the Bangalore guide for Malayalis working there, our Telangana guide, and the Delhi guide for where the central files land.

Where to file

Kerala Gazette Office

The Kerala State Gazette is handled by the Government Central Press, Directorate of Printing, at Statue, Thiruvananthapuram-695001, with District Forms Offices across the state. Since October 2021, name change and related citizen services are also available online at compose.kerala.gov.in, with the fee paid through eTreasury. The Central Gazette file goes to the Department of Publication, Civil Lines, Delhi-110054, and is downloaded from egazette.gov.in (Part IV, published every Saturday; the PDF needs no certification or stamp).

In this video, the YourDoorstep team explains the Kerala gazette office and how to change your name legally in Kerala, and how we handle the whole process at your doorstep.

Good to know: the Kerala Gazette accepts private advertisements for change of name, signature, religion and caste correction on prescribed forms. The forms are available from the Superintendent of Government Presses in Thiruvananthapuram and at District Forms Offices.

Where to apply

Gazette Office in Kerala: District Forms Office Contacts

You do not have to travel to Thiruvananthapuram. Kerala runs a District Forms Office in most districts, and a change of name, signature, caste or religion application filed there is forwarded to the Director of Printing for publication.

The point almost every guide gets wrong: gazette printing is centralised at the Government Central Press in Thiruvananthapuram, but submission is not. You can hand your file in at your own district office and it travels to Thiruvananthapuram for you.

Head office, Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum)

Office	Address	Contact
Directorate of Printing	Statue, Trivandrum 695001	0471-2331458
Gazette citizen services (name, signature, religion change)	Government Central Press, Statue, Thiruvananthapuram 695001	0471-2331360, 9744583798 publicationonline2021@gmail.com
Weekly Gazette, Parts 1, 2 and 3	Government Central Press, Thiruvananthapuram	9846442343, 8304058387 compose.kgonline@gmail.com
Extraordinary Gazette	Government Central Press, Thiruvananthapuram	8921493194, 8547039811 egazettekerala@gmail.com

For a personal name change the line you want is the first citizen services number, 0471-2331360. All of the above are published on the Kerala Printing Department's own contact directory.

District Forms Office in your district

District	District Forms Office address	Phone	Email
Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum)	Government Press Buildings, Mannanthala, Thiruvananthapuram	0471-2331812	dfotvpm.printing@kerala.gov.in
Kollam	Government Press Buildings, Umayanalloor P.O., Kollam 691589	0474-2535200	dfoklm.printing@kerala.gov.in
Pathanamthitta	Anugraha Building, Bldg No. XXIII/19 28(2), Kannankara P.O., Pathanamthitta 689645	0468-2271109	dfoptta.printing@kerala.gov.in
Alappuzha	Bazar P.O., Alappuzha 688012	0477-2251254	dfoalpy.printing@kerala.gov.in
Kottayam	Government Press Buildings, Vazhoor, Kottayam 686504	0481-2455160	dfoktm.printing@kerala.gov.in
Ernakulam (Kochi)	Kunnumpuram Road, Kakkanad, Cochin 682030	0484-2426593	dfoekm.printing@kerala.gov.in
Thrissur	Civil Station, Room No. 11, Ayyanthole, Thrissur 680003	0487-2366177	dfotcr.printing@kerala.gov.in
Palakkad	Government Press Building, Shoranur, Palakkad 679122	0466-2220429	dfopkd.printing@kerala.gov.in
Kozhikode (Calicut)	Vellimadukunnu, Kozhikode 673012	0495-2730540	dfokkd.printing@kerala.gov.in
Malappuram	Building No. 8, Civil Station, Malappuram 676505	0483-2730199	dfomlpm.printing@kerala.gov.in
Kannur	Government Press Buildings, Pallikunnu P.O., Kannur 670004	0497-2746406	dfoknr.printing@kerala.gov.in
Wayanad	Government Press Buildings, Meppadi, Wayanad 673577	0493-6281190	dfowyd.printing@kerala.gov.in
Idukki	Not listed on the Printing Department's published directory at the time of writing. Call the Thiruvananthapuram citizen services line on 0471-2331360 to ask where to submit from Idukki, or file online.
Kasaragod	Not listed on the Printing Department's published directory at the time of writing. Call 0471-2331360, or file online. Many Kasaragod applicants simply use the Kannur office.

We publish only what the government publishes. Every number above is taken from the Kerala Printing Department's official contact directory, not copied from other blogs. Two districts genuinely have no office listed, and we would rather say that than print a number that rings nowhere. Government numbers do change, so if a line does not connect, the Thiruvananthapuram citizen services desk on 0471-2331360 is the reliable fallback.

Using the portal

compose.kerala.gov.in: Registration, Login and the Application Form

Kerala is one of the few states where a citizen can register on the gazette portal directly. Here is what the portal is, what you can actually do on it, and where the official form lives.

What COMPOSE is

COMPOSE is the Kerala Printing Department's workflow system for the Government Presses, covering gazette publication, printing requests and citizen services. It went live for online gazette access on 2 October 2021. Crucially, it has a Citizen Registration option that is separate from the departmental login, so you do not need to be a government officer to use it.

Open compose.kerala.gov.in.
Choose Citizen Registration (this is the option ordinary applicants need, not the department login).
Complete the user registration, then sign in with your login name, password and the captcha.
Once inside you can submit a change of name, signature or religion request, track its status, and search published gazettes.

If the portal will not cooperate: the citizen services desk for name, signature and religion changes is 0471-2331360 / 9744583798, email publicationonline2021@gmail.com. That desk exists specifically for this service, and it is far quicker than guessing at the interface.

The official application form

The Printing Department publishes a downloadable "Application form for change of Name / Signature / Religion" on its own forms page at printing.kerala.gov.in. If you are filing on paper at a District Forms Office, that is the form to use. Fill it to match your affidavit letter for letter.

A caution we will not dress up: the form PDF is hosted by the department but does not carry a clearly readable form number, so any website quoting you a specific form number for the Kerala name change form is likely guessing. Download it from the department's own forms page rather than from a third-party site, and if the district office hands you a different version, use theirs.

Searching and downloading a published gazette

The portal's eGazette Search lets you filter by department, district, taluk or G.O. number, gazette number, year and keyword. Search by your own name and year to pull your notification once it publishes. Issues from 2 October 2021 onwards sit here; earlier Kerala Gazette issues are archived by the Printing Department.

What the portal does and does not do. Submitting the request, tracking status and searching gazettes are confirmed citizen features. We have not been able to confirm from official documentation that the fee is paid inside the portal itself, so treat the payment step as one to confirm with the department or your District Forms Office when you file, rather than assuming a card page will appear.

For NRIs

Applying from the Gulf or Abroad

A large number of Kerala families have someone working in the Gulf, so this comes up a lot. Yes, you can change your name while living abroad. The whole process runs on paperwork, so it can be handled from Dubai, Riyadh, Muscat or anywhere else.

For overseas use, the Central Gazette is the safer route, because it is accepted by embassies and consulates. If you are abroad, your name change deed is attested by the Indian Embassy or Consulate in that country. You share your details with us, and we prepare the affidavit, book the newspaper ads, and file the gazette in Delhi, then send you the PDF by email.

Tip for NRIs: if your name change is for a passport or a Gulf work visa, choose the Central Gazette from the start. It saves you from having to redo the process later.

Only in Kerala

Initials, House Names and Single Names: The Kerala Cases Other Guides Ignore

Most name change guides are written for Delhi or Mumbai naming patterns. Kerala names do not work that way, and three Kerala-specific situations account for a large share of the files we handle.

1. Expanding your initials (K. Anil Kumar to Kunnathu Anil Kumar)

Kerala records have carried initials for generations. Your SSLC book says K. Anil Kumar, your Aadhaar says Anil Kumar K, and your passport application wants the full expanded form. Airlines, GCC labour departments and the passport office all read these as three different people.

The answer: expanding an initial into its full word is treated as a name change, not a correction. It needs the same three steps: affidavit, two newspaper advertisements, gazette notification. In the affidavit you write the old name exactly as it appears on your SSLC book, then the expanded form as the new name, and give the reason as expansion of initials for uniformity across records.

Order matters. Expand the initial before you apply for or renew a passport, not after. Passport Seva compares your name against the birth certificate and the SSLC book, and a gazette that arrives later means a re-issue application on top of the one you already paid for.

2. House name instead of a surname

Traditional Kerala records often carry a house name, tharavadu name or place prefix where a surname would sit elsewhere in India. That is completely valid inside Kerala. It becomes a problem the moment a form outside Kerala has a mandatory Surname or Family Name field, which is exactly what happens with GCC employment visas, Schengen applications and several bank and insurance systems.

The answer: you can formally adopt or standardise a surname through the gazette. The affidavit records your present form, house name and given name, and the new full name in the given-name plus surname format. Nothing is lost, the house name can be retained as a middle element if you want it kept.

3. A single name with no surname at all, and the Gulf visa problem

If your passport shows a given name and an empty surname field, the mismatch surfaces at the destination, not in India. Several GCC labour and immigration systems will not accept a blank family name, and the labour card, the visa stamping or the Emirates ID data entry stalls. Families in Malappuram, Kannur and Kasaragod hit this constantly.

The answer: add a surname through the gazette first, then apply for a passport re-issue in the new full name. Doing it the other way round, with an embassy affidavit after you have already travelled, is slower and often needs the whole chain re-attested from India.

Your situation	Is it a gazette job?	Do this
K. Anil Kumar to Kunnathu Anil Kumar (expanding an initial)	Yes, full name change	Affidavit, two ads, gazette. Central Gazette if the passport is involved.
Anil Kumar K to K Anil Kumar (reordering the same letters)	Usually a correction, not a change	Try the department correction form first. Gazette only if the department refuses.
Adding a surname where the record shows a house name	Yes	Affidavit records house-name form to new full name, then gazette.
Single name, blank surname on the passport	Yes	Gazette first, then passport re-issue, then Aadhaar and PAN.
Aneesh vs Anish, one letter differs across two IDs	Often no	A spelling correction with supporting documents may clear it. Gazette makes it final.
Adding your husband's name after marriage	Optional	Marriage certificate plus affidavit clears most desks. Gazette if you want it airtight.

The rule that decides all six rows: if the letters of your name change, it is a name change and needs the gazette. If only the order, spacing or punctuation changes, ask the department for a correction first, because it is faster and free.

The process

The 3 Legal Steps

Both routes share the same first two steps. Only the final filing differs.

1

Make the affidavit

A short legal statement on stamp paper with your old name, new name, address, age and the reason, signed before a notary.

2

Publish in newspapers

Announce the change in two papers, one English and one Malayalam. Keep the full original pages as proof.

3

Get the gazette

Apply to the Kerala State Gazette through the Central Press, or send the Central file to Delhi, then download the PDF.

Step 1: Make the name change affidavit

An affidavit is a short legal statement on non-judicial stamp paper. It lists your old name, new name, address, age and the reason for the change. You sign it in front of a notary. In Kerala the stamp paper value for this is usually around Rs 100.

Step 2: Publish the change in two newspapers

You announce the name change in two newspapers, one English and one Malayalam. For English you can use The Hindu or The New Indian Express. For Malayalam you can use Malayala Manorama or Mathrubhumi. The notice should carry your old name, new name, address, father's or husband's name, and the affidavit date. Keep the full newspaper pages.

Step 3: Get the gazette notification

For the Kerala State Gazette, you submit the prescribed form with your affidavit and documents to the Government Central Press (or apply online at compose.kerala.gov.in) and pay through eTreasury. For the Central Gazette, the file goes to the Department of Publication, Civil Lines, Delhi-110054, with a typed proforma, two witnesses and the BharatKosh fee receipt, and it is printed in Part IV of the Gazette of India, downloaded from egazette.gov.in.

A quick note on order: the affidavit always comes first, because both the newspaper ad and the gazette file copy their details from it.

Save this

Name Change in Kerala: The Whole Process on One Page

Every step, both gazette routes, the real fees and what to update afterwards. Screenshot it, or send it to whoever is helping you file.

Infographic: the name change procedure in Kerala, from the notarised affidavit and two newspaper advertisements through the Kerala State Gazette on compose.kerala.gov.in or the Central Gazette on BharatKosh, to updating Aadhaar, PAN, passport and the rest. Birth certificate corrections are decided by the local Registrar under Section 14 or Section 15 of the RBD Act, 1969. A spelling fix needs no gazette at all; a genuine change of name is supported by the Kerala Gazette notification but is still granted by the Registrar.

Using this on your own site or in a WhatsApp group? Please credit YourDoorstep, How to Change Your Name Legally in Kerala.

Copy these

The Exact Affidavit and Newspaper Wording (Nobody Else Prints This)

Every other guide tells you to "get a notarised affidavit" and "publish an advertisement". None of them shows you what those actually have to say. Here is the wording, so you can walk into a notary's office knowing what should be on the paper.

Name change affidavit, clause by clause

Printed on non-judicial stamp paper, sworn before a Notary Public. Replace everything in square brackets.

AFFIDAVIT

I, [OLD FULL NAME], aged [__] years, son / daughter / wife of [FATHER'S OR HUSBAND'S NAME], residing at [FULL ADDRESS WITH DISTRICT AND PIN, KERALA], do hereby solemnly affirm and declare as follows:

1. That I am a citizen of India and the deponent herein.

2. That my name has been recorded as [OLD FULL NAME] in my [Aadhaar / SSLC certificate / passport / other records].

3. That I have changed my name from [OLD FULL NAME] to [NEW FULL NAME] with effect from [DATE].

4. That the reason for this change is [expansion of initials / addition of surname / change after marriage / restoration of maiden name / correction of spelling / personal reasons].

5. That henceforth I shall be known as [NEW FULL NAME] for all purposes.

6. That [OLD FULL NAME] and [NEW FULL NAME] denote one and the same person, that is myself.

7. That this declaration is made for the purpose of a public notification and is not intended to defraud any person or authority.

VERIFICATION

Verified at [PLACE], Kerala on this [__] day of [MONTH], [YEAR] that the contents of the above affidavit are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief, and nothing material has been concealed therefrom.

DEPONENT

Clause 6 is the one people leave out and later regret. The "one and the same person" line is exactly what a bank, a university office or a GCC employer asks for when your old certificate and new ID sit side by side. Getting it into the original affidavit saves you a separate one-and-same certificate from the Village Officer later.

Notary or First Class Magistrate? Settle this before you pay

A Notary Public attestation is enough for both the Kerala State Gazette and the Central Gazette. Neither checklist asks for a First Class Judicial Magistrate for an ordinary name change. Agents who insist on a magistrate are adding a step you do not need. A magistrate becomes relevant only where a specific authority demands it in writing, which is rare outside court-linked matters.

Newspaper advertisement wording, English

I, [OLD FULL NAME], son / daughter / wife of [FATHER'S OR HUSBAND'S NAME], residing at [ADDRESS, DISTRICT, KERALA], have changed my name from [OLD FULL NAME] to [NEW FULL NAME] vide affidavit dated [DATE] sworn before the Notary at [PLACE]. Henceforth I shall be known as [NEW FULL NAME] for all purposes.

Newspaper advertisement wording, Malayalam

ഞാൻ, [പഴയ പൂർണ്ണ നാമം], [അച്ഛന്റെ / ഭർത്താവിന്റെ പേര്] എന്നയാളുടെ മകൻ / മകൾ / ഭാര്യ, [വിലാസം, ജില്ല, കേരളം] എന്ന വിലാസത്തിൽ താമസിക്കുന്ന ഞാൻ, [തീയതി] തീയതിയിലെ സത്യവാങ്മൂലം പ്രകാരം എന്റെ പേര് [പഴയ പൂർണ്ണ നാമം] എന്നതിൽ നിന്ന് [പുതിയ പൂർണ്ണ നാമം] എന്നാക്കി മാറ്റിയിരിക്കുന്നു. ഇനി മുതൽ എല്ലാ ആവശ്യങ്ങൾക്കും ഞാൻ [പുതിയ പൂർണ്ണ നാമം] എന്ന പേരിൽ അറിയപ്പെടും.

Three things that get an advertisement rejected at the gazette desk: the English and the Malayalam versions spelling the new name differently, an advertisement that omits the affidavit date, and a cutting where the masthead and the date of the paper are not both visible. Save the complete original page, not the clipped box.

Is one English plus one Malayalam paper actually compulsory?

For a simple name change there is no statutory language rule. What is real is the practical expectation: one English daily gives your notice reach with national institutions, one Malayalam daily gives it reach where you actually live. Publishing in only one paper is the second most common reason a file comes back, because the desk sees an incomplete public notice. Two papers, two different dates is fine, both cuttings kept in full.

Fact check

What Other Websites Get Wrong About Name Change in Kerala

The pages ranking for this topic copy each other, and the same errors travel from site to site. Here is what they say, against the verified position, so your file is not built on a myth.

What many websites say	The verified fact
"Draw a Demand Draft in favour of the Controller of Publications, Kerala"	There is no Controller of Publications in Kerala, and demand drafts are not accepted anyway. The Department of Publication sits at Civil Lines, Delhi-110054, and the Central Gazette fee is paid only online through BharatKosh. Kerala's own gazette runs through the Printing Department, with the fee paid online through eTreasury.
"Get your gazette name change done for just Rs 999"	The Central Gazette government fee alone is Rs 1,100 for an adult on BharatKosh, so no honest all-inclusive service can cost Rs 999. Teaser pricing quietly excludes the gazette fee, stamp paper, notary and newspaper ads.
"File a petition with the court, and after a hearing the court issues an order granting the name change"	The gazette route never touches a court. There is no petition, no hearing and no court order. It is a notification process: affidavit, two newspaper ads, then the gazette, whether you use Kerala's compose portal or the Central Gazette.
"Without a gazette notification, most government agencies will reject your update request"	Small spelling corrections in Aadhaar or bank records often go through with supporting documents alone. The gazette is the universal, strongest proof for a full legal name change, which is why we recommend it, but the all-or-nothing version of this claim is sales pressure, not law.
"You must be 18 years of age to apply"	Minors change names too. The parent or legal guardian files on the child's behalf with the birth certificate attached, and the Central Gazette even has a separate minor fee of Rs 1,700. There is no 18-plus restriction on the process itself.
"Submit a CD with the typed content of your notification"	The CD belongs to the old process. The current Central Gazette checklist runs on the BharatKosh payment receipt, the notarised affidavit, newspaper originals, ID proofs, photographs and two hard copies of the specimen form, and Kerala's state application runs fully online on compose.kerala.gov.in. No compact disc on either route.
"You need an affidavit from a 1st Class Magistrate"	A notarised affidavit works for the gazette routes. Nothing in the Central Gazette checklist or Kerala's compose portal requires a magistrate-sworn affidavit for a simple name change, and demanding one only adds time and cost.
"One ad must be in the regional language newspaper, as a rule"	For a simple name change there is no language restriction at all. In Kerala one Malayalam daily plus one English daily is the practical pair, and that combination serves both local offices and national institutions well.
"Your printed gazette copy will arrive by post"	Printed Central Gazette copies stopped from 1 October 2015. You download the PDF from egazette.gov.in (Part IV, published every Saturday), and Kerala Gazette issues publish online every Tuesday on the state portals, valid under the Information Technology Act, 2000.
"Any old affidavit and newspaper ad will work"	The Department of Publication does not accept documents older than one year, and documents once submitted are not returned.
"Fix your birth certificate spelling through the gazette"	A birth certificate correction is decided by the Registrar under Section 14 or Section 15 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, through your municipal corporation, municipality or panchayat, not by the gazette. A plain spelling fix needs no gazette at all. See the full procedure.
"Two newspaper advertisements are compulsory or the gazette will reject you"	The Department of Publication's own guidelines say the change "should be advertised in one of the daily local leading newspapers". One satisfies the Central Gazette. A second, Malayalam, insertion is sensible for Kerala authorities downstream and costs little, but nobody can reject your Central file for having filed one. Source
"Your gazette will be published in 10 to 15 days"	The Government Central Press citizen information states that publication "normally takes 45 to 60 days from the date of submission". Treat any 15-day promise as sales copy. Faster is possible, but it is not what the department commits to.
"Applicants abroad pay Rs 3,500"	True only for adults. A minor abroad pays Rs 5,100 under the Department of Publication's separate guidelines for minors. Almost every Kerala page under-quotes Gulf-based parents on this. Source
"The Central Gazette is always better because it is valid nationwide"	Not if your documents are Kerala documents. The University of Kerala's own change-of-name form requires the change to be notified in the Kerala Government Gazette and asks for the printed Kerala gazette page. SSLC corrections list Kerala Gazette publication as the first eligibility criterion. See the authority matrix.

Why this matters: a Controller that does not exist, a magistrate nobody needs or a stale document does not just delay your file, it can mean paying the non-refundable fee again. Every fact in this table follows the Department of Publication's guidelines, Kerala's own Printing Department portals and the official sources listed below.

Checklist

Documents Required for Name Change in Kerala

Keep these ready. Missing or mismatched papers are the top reason files get held up.

Document	Needed?	Notes
Notarised name change affidavit (original)	Yes	Base document for either route
Prescribed Kerala gazette form	Yes (State)	From the Central Press or online
Old name ID proof	Yes	Aadhaar, PAN, Voter ID or passport
Address proof (Kerala)	Yes	Shows your Kerala address
Two passport-size photos	Yes	Self-attested
Full copies of both newspaper ads	Yes	One English and one Malayalam
Typed proforma + BharatKosh receipt	Yes (Central)	Only for the Central Gazette route
Marriage certificate	If applicable	For a surname change after marriage
Divorce papers	If applicable	For restoring your maiden name
Birth certificate	If applicable	For a minor's name change
Embassy-attested deed	If abroad	For NRIs applying from the Gulf or elsewhere

If you are from Kerala but living abroad, your deed must be attested by the Indian Embassy or Consulate of that country.

Real costs

Name Change Fees in Kerala (2026)

Two costs sit inside a name change: the government publication fee, and the side costs like stamp paper, notary and newspaper ads that vary.

Item	Cost	Paid to / where
Central Gazette fee (adult)	Rs 1,100	Department of Publication, online on BharatKosh (NTRP)
Central Gazette fee (minor)	Rs 1,700	Department of Publication, online on BharatKosh (NTRP)
Extra alias name in the same notice	Rs 250 per alias	Added to the Central Gazette fee on BharatKosh
Central Gazette fee, adult living abroad	Rs 3,500	Department of Publication adult guidelines, paid on BharatKosh
Central Gazette fee, minor living abroad	Rs 5,100	Department of Publication minor guidelines, paid on BharatKosh
Kerala State Gazette, direct treasury remittance head of account	Cost of gazette: `0058 Sty & Ptg, Cost of Gazette (102)` Advertisement charges: `0058 Sty & Ptg, Cost of Gazette (200)`	Kerala Government Treasury or eTreasury. Confirm the live head with the Press before you remit
Kerala State Gazette publication	Not published as one fixed all-India figure. Budget for the prescribed publication charge and confirm the live amount before you pay.	Government Central Press, paid online through Kerala eTreasury / compose.kerala.gov.in
Non-judicial stamp paper for the affidavit	Rs 20 to Rs 200 depending on the denomination your notary uses	Stamp vendor, under the Kerala Stamp Act, 1959
Notary attestation	Roughly Rs 100 to Rs 300	Notary Public
Newspaper advertisement, English daily	Roughly Rs 400 to Rs 1,500	The newspaper or its booking agent, by edition and ad size
Newspaper advertisement, Malayalam daily	Roughly Rs 400 to Rs 1,500	The newspaper or its booking agent, by edition and ad size
Certified / duplicate gazette copy later	Nominal, on application	Government Central Press (state) or Department of Publication (central)

Where honest pages stop and we keep going: almost every competing guide prints one confident rupee figure for the Kerala State Gazette. Cross-check them and the numbers disagree wildly, because no single fixed statewide schedule is published the way BharatKosh publishes the central fee. We would rather tell you that than invent a number. The Central Gazette figures above are the ones you can rely on, because BharatKosh shows them to you on screen before you pay.

Watch out: pay only through official channels (eTreasury for the state route, BharatKosh for the central route) and keep the receipt for the file. Do not pay cash to anyone who calls it a "government charge."

Paying correctly

How to Actually Pay the Gazette Fee: eTreasury and BharatKosh

A wrong payment head is one of the quietest ways to lose a fee, because the money leaves your account and never lands against your file. Here is each route end to end.

Kerala State Gazette: the eTreasury route

Register or log in on compose.kerala.gov.in, the Printing Department's citizen portal, live since 2 October 2021.
Choose the citizen service for Change of Name, and enter the notification text exactly as it appears in your affidavit. This text is printed as-is, so proofread it twice.
Upload the notarised affidavit, both newspaper pages, your ID proof and your Kerala address proof.
Complete the submission, then settle the publication charge through the channel the portal or your District Forms Office specifies, commonly a Kerala eTreasury challan. Confirm the head of account belongs to the Printing Department before you authorise anything, and if the portal does not present a payment screen, call the citizen services desk on 0471-2331360 rather than paying through any third-party link.
Save the e-challan or transaction reference. This number, not the bank SMS, is what the press desk asks for.
Use the portal's status tracking to follow the file. This feature exists on the government's own portal and almost no competing guide mentions it.

The head of account nobody else publishes

If you are remitting directly at a Kerala Government Treasury rather than through the portal's own payment flow, the money has to land under the right head or it simply will not be traced to your file. The Government Central Press citizen information gives two:

What you are paying for	Head of account
Cost of the gazette itself	`Sty & Ptg, 0058 Cost of Gazette (102)`
Advertisement charges (your name change notification)	`Sty & Ptg, 0058 Cost of Gazette (200)`

Treasury counters take these remittances on working days between 10.30 a.m. and 3.30 p.m., and a further Rs 5 is collected as the cost of the application form, which itself is supplied free.

Two honest caveats on this, and we would rather you had them than a false certainty. First, these codes come from a published transcription of the Government Central Press citizen charter, and gazette.kerala.gov.in was unreachable to us when we last checked, so we could not read them off the department's own live page. Read the head back to the counter clerk before you remit. Second, the private advertisement rate is not a fixed all-India number: the charter says the cost of gazette and mode of payment "are published from time to time at the last page of Gazette". Any site quoting you one confident figure for the Kerala Gazette is quoting an undated transcription, exactly as we would be if we printed one.

How long the state route really takes. The same Government Central Press information states that publication "normally takes 45 to 60 days from the date of submission". That matches the only genuine first-hand account we found of a Kerala gazette name change, which described it as taking "a couple of months". Files do move faster than that. But when a service agent promises you 10 to 15 days, they are describing their best case, not the department's commitment.

Do not scatter your evidence. Keep the challan PDF, the portal acknowledgement number and a photograph of both full newspaper pages in one folder. If a query comes back three weeks later, you answer it the same day instead of rebuilding the file.

Central Gazette: the BharatKosh (NTRP) route

Go to bharatkosh.gov.in and choose a non-registered or registered payment.
Select the ministry Housing and Urban Affairs, then the Department of Publication as the payee. The Department sits at Civil Lines, Delhi-110054.
Pick the purpose relating to gazette notification of change of name, then enter the amount the portal shows: Rs 1,100 for an adult, Rs 1,700 for a minor, plus Rs 250 for each extra alias in the same notice, or, if you are applying from outside India, Rs 3,500 for an adult and Rs 5,100 for a minor.
Complete payment and download the NTRP receipt PDF. Print it. It goes into the physical file.
Post or submit the set: NTRP receipt, notarised affidavit, both original newspaper pages, ID proofs, photographs and two hard copies of the typed specimen proforma.

Two rules that cost people money. First, there is no Controller of Publications in Kerala and no demand draft is accepted on the central route, only BharatKosh. Second, the fee is non-refundable, so a rejected file means paying again. Get the spellings right before you pay, not after.

	Kerala State Gazette	Central Gazette of India
Pay through	Kerala eTreasury via compose.kerala.gov.in	BharatKosh (NTRP)
Payee	Government Central Press, Directorate of Printing, Kerala	Department of Publication, Civil Lines, Delhi-110054
Fee certainty	Shown on the portal at the time of filing	Rs 1,100 adult, Rs 1,700 minor, Rs 250 per extra alias; from abroad Rs 3,500 adult and Rs 5,100 minor
Proof you keep	eTreasury e-challan number	NTRP receipt PDF
Refundable?	No	No
Demand draft accepted?	No	No

Public notice

Newspaper Publication in Kerala

Publishing the notice is a real step, not a formality. Use one English paper and one Malayalam paper that circulate in your area. In Kerala, Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi have strong Malayalam reach, while The Hindu and The New Indian Express are common English choices.

Keep the complete original pages with the date and newspaper name clearly visible. A cutting where the date cannot be read is treated as invalid. Use our ready English advertisement text and the Malayalam version so both read identically.

Important: save the full original newspaper pages, not just the cut-out advert. You attach these with the gazette file, and photocopies alone are often not accepted.

Every document

Name Change Services We Handle in Kerala

A gazette on its own is only useful once your other records match it. We help you update your new name across all the documents that matter for Kerala residents.

🪪

Aadhaar Card

Name change or spelling correction with the gazette as proof.

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PAN Card

Name update through the NSDL or UTIITSL route.

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Voter ID (EPIC)

Name correction on the electoral roll via Form 8.

🛂

Passport

Re-issue with your new name, important for Gulf jobs and visas.

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Driving Licence

Name update at the RTO with the gazette copy.

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Bank & KYC

Update your name across bank accounts and KYC records.

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Kerala Board & University records

Records for the Kerala board, CBSE and universities.

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Birth Certificate

Correction through the local Registrar under the RBD Act, not the gazette.

🛡️

LIC & Insurance

Name change on policies and insurance records.

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Ration Card & Property

Updates on ration card and property documents.

Tell us which documents you need updated. Call 9540005026 and we guide you through each one after the gazette.

Across Kerala

Cities in Kerala We Serve

We handle name change work for people all across Kerala, from the big cities to smaller towns, and for Malayalis working abroad. Wherever you are, the process runs the same way, and you never have to travel to Delhi.

From Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode to Thrissur, Kannur and towns from Kasaragod to Pathanamthitta, the legal steps are identical, because a name change runs on paperwork, not on which of Kerala's fourteen districts you live in. The same file works for the whole state, everywhere in India and for Malayalis in the Gulf, and birth certificate corrections stay with your municipal corporation or local Registrar.

Thiruvananthapuram Kochi Kozhikode Thrissur Kollam Kannur Kottayam Alappuzha Palakkad Malappuram Pathanamthitta Idukki Wayanad Kasaragod Thalassery Aluva Manjeri Ponnani Guruvayur Kanhangad Kayamkulam Perinthalmanna

Do not see your town? We still cover it. Call 9540005026 and we will confirm.

Next step

After the Gazette: Update Your Records

Once your name change is published, use the gazette PDF to update your other records. This is the final and often the slowest part, so start early.

Document	How to update
Aadhaar	Update at an Aadhaar Seva Kendra with the gazette as proof
PAN	Apply for name correction through NSDL or UTIITSL
Passport	Apply for re-issue with the gazette and newspaper ads
Driving licence	Visit the RTO with the gazette copy
Bank accounts	Visit your branch with the gazette, affidavit and ID
Voter ID	Submit Form 8 for correction
Board / university records	Contact your board or university with the gazette
Employer records	Inform HR with the gazette copy

Keep several printouts of the gazette, because every office will want its own copy. We can also handle these updates for you.

The last mile

Your Gazette Is Published. Now Download It, Verify It, and Fix It If It Is Wrong

Publication is not the finish line, holding a verifiable copy is. This is the part of the process that no other Kerala guide documents.

How to download your published gazette notification

Central Gazette: go to egazette.gov.in, open Part IV (private notifications, published every Saturday), and search by the week your notice was published. Download the PDF and save the gazette number, part, and date of publication.
Kerala State Gazette: issues published from 2 October 2021 onwards sit on compose.kerala.gov.in. Older issues are archived on the Kerala Gazette site maintained by the Printing Department.
Printed copies of the Central Gazette stopped being posted from 1 October 2015. The downloaded PDF is the valid record, and an electronic gazette carries legal recognition under the Information Technology Act, 2000.

How a bank, employer or passport office verifies it

Do not just hand over a printout. Give the verifying officer three things: the gazette number, the Part, and the date of publication. With those, anyone can pull the same PDF from the government portal themselves and confirm your entry. A Gulf employer's HR department can do this from Dubai. This is the single most useful habit we teach clients, because it converts an argument into a thirty second check.

Save three files forever: the gazette PDF, the notarised affidavit, and photographs of both complete newspaper pages. Every record update for the rest of your life, Aadhaar, PAN, passport, provident fund, property, pension, will ask for one of those three.

What if the published gazette has a spelling mistake?

You cannot edit a gazette that has already been published. The remedy is a corrigendum, a fresh correction notification filed with the same press, and it broadly repeats the original process: a corrected affidavit and a fresh application. Expect to pay again, because the original fee is not refundable. This is precisely why the proofreading step before payment matters more than anything else in this guide.

If you lose your gazette copy years later

Nothing is lost. Because the gazette is a permanent public record, you can retrieve the issue from the portal at any time, and you can request a certified or duplicate copy from the office that published it, the Government Central Press for a Kerala Gazette entry, or the Department of Publication for a Central Gazette entry. Knowing the approximate month of publication makes this far quicker.

Tracking your application while it is pending

On the Kerala route, compose.kerala.gov.in provides status tracking against your application, so you can see where the file sits instead of calling the press. For the Central route there is no live tracker, which is why the published Part IV list every Saturday is what you watch. Typical central publication runs about 30 to 45 days from a complete file.

Special cases

Marriage, Divorce, Minors & Spelling

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After marriage

Add your marriage certificate to the file. The affidavit states your maiden name and married name. The three steps stay the same.

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Name change after divorce

You can return to your maiden name through the same process. Keep your divorce papers ready. No separate court order is needed just to restore a maiden name.

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For a minor

The parent or guardian signs the affidavit and applies on the child's behalf. The Central Gazette fee for a minor is Rs 1,700.

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Spelling & birth certificate

A simple spelling case states the wrong and correct spelling in the affidavit. A birth certificate correction, though, goes through the local Registrar under the RBD Act, not the gazette.

Not the standard route

Four Situations Where the Ordinary Gazette Route Is Not Enough

Some name changes in Kerala do not travel the usual affidavit, advertisement, gazette path, or need a second process on top of it. If you are in one of these four groups, read this before you spend anything.

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Government employees

A serving Central or State Government employee usually needs the change reflected in the service book and departmental records, not just the public gazette. The standard route is a change of name deed routed through your own department or ministry, which then notifies the change. Kerala State employees also need the corrected name carried into SPARK service records. Publishing a citizen notification without telling your department leaves your salary and pension records under the old name.

🏳️‍⚧️

Transgender applicants

There is a dedicated legal route that most name change guides never mention. Following NALSA v. Union of India (2014) and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, a transgender person can apply to the District Magistrate for a certificate of identity and, after gender confirmation surgery, a revised certificate, which then supports a change of name and gender in official records. This is a statutory right, not a favour, and it does not require the newspaper advertisement route unless you also want a general public notification.

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SSLC, Plus Two and university records

The gazette is the prerequisite, not the fix. For an SSLC certificate you apply through your school with the original SSLC book, the gazette copy, the affidavit and the admission register extract; the head of the school forwards it to the Commissioner for Government Examinations (Pareeksha Bhavan), and a revised fee applies per G.O.(MS) No.114/2022/Gen.Edn. University degree certificates are harder, some universities are reluctant to reissue and will ask for a Village Officer one-and-same certificate. Do the SSLC correction first, because universities lean on it.

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Birth certificate

Not a gazette matter at all. A birth certificate name entry is corrected by the local Registrar of Births and Deaths under Section 15 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, through your municipality, corporation or panchayat. Spending on a gazette notification expecting the birth certificate to change is money spent on the wrong desk, though the gazette does help support the Registrar application.

The sequencing rule for all four: settle the underlying legal record first, service book, District Magistrate certificate, SSLC book or birth register, then update Aadhaar, PAN and passport. Doing it in the reverse order is the reason files bounce between offices for months.

Different process

Birth Certificate Name Change in Kerala: The Full Procedure

This is the one people most often get sent to the wrong office for. A birth certificate is not corrected by the gazette. It is corrected by your local Registrar of Births and Deaths, under a specific section of a specific Act, and which section applies depends on one question. Kerala relaxed the rules here in March 2025 and issued a fresh correction circular in April 2026, so most guides you will find are now out of date.

Quick Answer

To change a name on a birth certificate in Kerala, apply to the local Registrar of Births and Deaths at the panchayat, municipality or corporation where the birth was registered. If the name field was left blank at registration you are adding a name under Section 14 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969. If a name is already recorded but wrong, you are correcting it under Section 15. The gazette is not the deciding authority here. For a plain spelling fix you do not need one at all. For a genuine change of name the Registrar will want the Kerala Gazette notification as evidence, and since March 2025 Kerala has said that notification alone should be enough, without first correcting your SSLC.

First decide: are you adding a name, or correcting one?

	Adding a name (Section 14)	Correcting a name (Section 15)
When it applies	The birth was registered without a name, so the name field is empty	A name was entered, but it is wrong, misspelt or has to change
Legal basis	Section 14, Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969	Section 15, Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969
What the Registrar does	Enters the name in the register and initials and dates the entry	Makes a marginal entry. The original entry is never overwritten or erased
Kerala time window	Within 12 months of registration without penalty. After that a late fee of Rs 5 applies and it can still be done. The 2015 amendment rules added outer limits, and LSGD stated that where 15 years had elapsed the name could be entered up to 13.07.2026, that date has now passed, so confirm the current position with your Registrar	No fixed window published, but older entries attract more scrutiny
Difficulty	Straightforward	Depends on whether the error is clerical or substantial, see below

This distinction saves people months. Walking into the panchayat office asking to "change the name" when your record simply never had one gets you routed into the harder correction process. Say plainly whether the field was blank or wrong.

How Kerala decides who can approve your correction

Under the Kerala Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 1999, a Section 15 correction is handled at one of three levels depending on how serious the error is:

Clerical or formal error (an obvious typing slip): the Registrar can correct it directly on a report. This is the fast lane.
Substantial error (the recorded name is materially wrong): you must produce a declaration from two credible persons setting out the nature of the error, and the Registrar reports the matter to the Chief Registrar or the officer specified by the State Government before correcting.
Entries made fraudulently or improperly: the Registrar reports to the officer authorised by the Chief Registrar.

Separately, if the birth was registered before 1970, inclusion of a name or a correction needs the permission of the Chief Registrar. Very old family records almost always fall into this group, so budget extra time.

Doing it online in Kerala: which portal is yours

Kerala does not have one single birth-certificate portal, and picking the wrong one is why people report that "the website does not work". It depends on the local body where the birth was registered:

Where the birth was registered	Portal to use
Municipal Corporation or Municipality	K-Smart, ksmart.lsgkerala.gov.in
Gram Panchayat	ILGMS Citizen Service Portal, citizen.lsgkerala.gov.in
Legacy and parallel access, certificate search	Sevana Civil Registration, cr.lsgkerala.gov.in

Two things we will not print, because they are not officially published. First, there is no official itemised document checklist for a Section 15 name correction in Kerala; the Rules specify the declaration by two credible persons for substantial corrections, and the rest is the Registrar's satisfaction. Second, no official processing time or correction fee is published. Any site giving you a confident checklist, a fee and a "7 working days" promise for this is filling in blanks. Ask your own Registrar, because practice varies between local bodies.

What to actually carry to the Registrar

Officially unlisted does not mean unknowable. In practice, walking in with the following covers almost every request, and costs you nothing to prepare:

The original birth certificate and the registration number and year
Your declaration of the error, and for a substantial correction, the declaration by two credible persons the Rules require
Supporting proof of the correct name: school admission register extract or SSLC book, Aadhaar, passport, parents' IDs
The gazette notification, if you have already done one. It is not the authority for this correction, but it is strong corroboration and many Registrars are visibly happier to see it
For a minor, the parents' identity and address proof

So do I need a gazette for my birth certificate at all?

It depends entirely on which of two things you are doing, and this is where almost every other page on the internet goes wrong.

What you are doing	Gazette needed?	Why
Fixing an obvious spelling mistake in the name already recorded	No	The Registrar rectifies it directly as a clerical error. Kerala confirmed this publicly when the one-time correction facility was announced
Adding a name that was never entered (Section 14)	No	This is a name inclusion, not a correction. Rule 10 governs it
Genuinely changing to a different name (Section 15)	Yes, in practice	The Registrar wants the Kerala Gazette notification as the evidence of the change. Note that this requirement comes from departmental circulars and practice, not from the Kerala Rules 1999 themselves
Changing the father's name	Neither, court only	The Kerala High Court has held this needs a DNA report and a court order. A Registrar cannot decide paternity

The Kerala Rules do not mention a gazette, a newspaper advertisement or a public notice anywhere. We checked the Kerala Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 1999 in full. Rule 10 covers name inclusion and Rule 11 covers correction, and neither imposes a publication requirement. The gazette step is administrative practice layered on top by circular. That matters, because it explains why different Registrars ask for different things.

The March 2025 relaxation: what changed, and what we cannot confirm

This is the update that makes most other Kerala pages out of date, and it also has a genuine hole in it that we are going to show you rather than paper over.

In late March 2025, Kerala's Local Self Government Minister M.B. Rajesh announced that a person whose birth is registered in Kerala may make a one-time change of name in the birth register on the strength of a Gazette notification alone. Until then, Circular No. RD3/167/2022/LSGD dated 29 June 2023 required you to first get the gazette-changed name corrected in your school admission register and SSLC certificate, and only then apply to the Registrar. That created a real catch-22 for anyone schooled under CBSE or ICSE, or educated abroad, whose school records could not be altered at all.

The announcement was reported the same week by Manorama Online, Deshabhimani, Madhyamam, MediaOne and ETV Bharat Malayalam. They agree on the substance.

What we could not verify, and will not pretend otherwise. We searched lsgd.kerala.gov.in, go.lsgkerala.gov.in, cr.lsgkerala.gov.in, sanchitha.lsgkerala.gov.in and document.kerala.gov.in and could not find a government order, circular or G.O. number implementing the March 2025 announcement. Every report is of a ministerial announcement, and several noted that implementation would follow in K-SMART. Worse, an orders aggregator republished the operative circular list in June 2025, three months later, and it still showed only the 2023 circular with the SSLC precondition intact. Ask your own Registrar which position they are applying before you spend money on the school-records route. Any page that tells you the SSLC requirement is definitively abolished is stating more than the published record supports.

April 2026: the newest circular, and what it is not

The most recent primary document we could verify is Circular No. RD3/118/2024-LSGD dated 10 April 2026, listed on the Kerala Government Document Portal and the LSGD orders portal. It rescinds an earlier circular of 31 May 2023 and simplifies the correction of errors in birth and death registration, parental names in particular, under Section 15 and Rule 11(2), letting the Registrar act on affidavits from two credible witnesses with document verification. The "one and the same person" certificate from a village officer and the separate notary or gazetted-officer verification are no longer demanded for that route.

Do not confuse the two. The April 2026 circular is about correcting errors. It is not a name-change route, and reporting on it noted that major changes still go through gazette notification. If someone tells you the April 2026 circular removed the gazette requirement for name changes, they have merged two different documents.

You get one shot, apply for everything together

The correction facility in the birth register is a one-time facility. If your record needs the name fixed and the parents' names fixed and the address fixed, put them in one application. Coming back three months later for the second item is the mistake that turns a solved problem into an unsolvable one.

Where it genuinely helps to hold a gazette is the other direction: once your birth certificate, your gazette notification and your ID documents all read the same, every downstream office stops asking questions. If you are changing your name across your whole life, do the gazette for the name and the Registrar application for the birth record, and treat them as two separate errands that have to end up agreeing.

Sources for this section: Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 (India Code) · Kerala RBD Rules, 1999 · LSGD Kerala, birth registration · Onmanorama, 1 July 2023 · Onmanorama, Kerala High Court on father's name, 25 July 2025 · Kerala Kaumudi, 22 April 2026

School & board records

Name Change in SSLC, CBSE and ICSE Certificates

Three different boards, three genuinely different procedures. The one thing they share is that you start at your school, not at the board office.

🏫

Kerala State Board (SSLC)

Apply through your school with the original SSLC book, the gazette notification, the notarised affidavit and the admission register extract. The head of the school forwards the file to the Commissioner for Government Examinations, Pareeksha Bhavan. Forms are published on the Pareeksha Bhavan site. A revised fee structure applies under G.O.(MS) No.114/2022/Gen.Edn, though the department does not publish a single name-correction fee figure, so confirm the current amount with your school.

📘

CBSE (Class 10 and 12)

Submit a written request to the school you passed from, with public documents supporting the correct name such as the birth certificate, passport, Aadhaar or marriage certificate. The school attaches the transfer certificate, admission form and admission withdrawal register and forwards the file to the concerned CBSE Regional Office. CBSE's own guidance rests on the Supreme Court's direction in Jija Yadav v. CBSE, which allows correction on the strength of public documents. CBSE's rules here have been under active review, so check the current circular with your school before you pay anything.

📗

ICSE and ISC (CISCE)

Route it through your school to the Council with the attested amended school admission form, the attested birth certificate, the original statement of marks and pass certificate, proof of the online correction fee paid through the school, a cutting of the newspaper announcement, and, note this carefully, an original affidavit signed by a First Class Magistrate. CISCE is the one body in this list that specifically wants a magistrate rather than a notary, so do not assume your gazette affidavit will be accepted as-is.

The trap in that last card. A notarised affidavit is enough for both gazette routes, which is what the rest of this guide tells you. CISCE is the exception. If an ICSE or ISC certificate is part of your plan, find that out now, not after your notary appointment.

Order of play for students and graduates: gazette first, then the school board certificate, then the university degree. Universities lean on the board certificate, and the board leans on the gazette. Doing it in that order means each office already has the document the next one wants to see.

New · 25 August 2026

Kerala Is Now Officially "Keralam". Does That Affect Your Name Change?

This landed two days before we last updated this page, and it will not be on any other name-change guide yet. Here is what actually changed, and, more usefully, what did not.

Quick Answer

No, it does not affect your name change, and you do not need to redo anything. The State of Kerala was renamed the State of Keralam under the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Act, 2026, notified with effect from 25 August 2026. It is a change to the state's constitutional name, not to any procedure. Your affidavit, your newspaper advertisement, your gazette notification and every certificate already issued in the name "Kerala" remain fully valid. Do not let anyone sell you a "re-notification" service on the back of this.

What happened, and when

Date	Step
24 June 2024	The Kerala Legislative Assembly passed a resolution asking the Centre to rename the state under Article 3 of the Constitution
24 February 2026	The Union Cabinet approved the alteration of the name of the State of Kerala to Keralam
11 August 2026	The Lok Sabha passed the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026
12 August 2026	The Rajya Sabha passed it
August 2026	The President gave assent
25 August 2026	Notified and in force. The state is officially Keralam

The Act amends Articles 31A and 290A and the First and Fourth Schedules of the Constitution to substitute "Keralam" for "Kerala".

What it means for documents already issued

Nothing you hold becomes invalid. A change of a state's name under Article 3 does not void instruments issued before it. Courts, tribunals and authorities may construe existing laws in whatever manner is necessary to give effect to the name change, and the appropriate government has up to one year from the appointed day to adapt or modify existing laws.
Your gazette notification is safe. Whether it was published in the Kerala Gazette or the Gazette of India, and whether it reads "Kerala" or "Keralam", it is the same notification of the same fact.
Your affidavit and newspaper advertisement are safe, including ones that give a Kerala address in the old spelling.
Nothing needs to be re-notified, re-advertised or re-paid for. If a service provider tells you otherwise, that is a sales pitch, not a legal requirement.

What we deliberately are not telling you, because nobody has published it yet. We have found no notification stating that the "Kerala Gazette" has been renamed, and as at the date of this update the portals still carry their existing names and addresses, compose.kerala.gov.in for filing, gazette.kerala.gov.in for downloads, and the Government Central Press, Thiruvananthapuram. Departmental names, domain names, letterheads and forms typically follow a state renaming over months, not overnight. We will update this section as each one actually changes, rather than guessing. If a form in front of you says "Kerala" today, fill it in as it is printed.

One practical tip if you are filing right now. Write your address exactly as it appears on the ID proof you are submitting. Consistency between the affidavit, the advertisement and the ID is what gets files accepted, a mismatch between "Kerala" and "Keralam" across your own documents is a brand-new way to fail the spelling-consistency check that already causes most rejections. Pick whichever spelling your ID uses and keep it identical everywhere.

Sources: Prime Minister's Office, Cabinet approval · SCC Online, Lok Sabha passage, 13 August 2026 · The News Minute, notification · Manorama Yearbook

The decision most people get backwards

Which Gazette Does Your Authority Actually Accept?

Almost every guide online tells you the Central Gazette is "valid nationwide and therefore better". For a Kerala applicant whose documents sit with Kerala institutions, that advice is frequently wrong, and it is expensive to discover late. Here is the matrix nobody else publishes.

Quick Answer

Pick your gazette by where the documents you actually need to fix are held, not by which gazette sounds more important. Kerala universities and the SSLC board want the Kerala Gazette specifically, the University of Kerala's own form says the change "has to be notified in the Kerala Government Gazette". Passports, Aadhaar, PAN, banks and Gulf employers accept either, and the Central Gazette is the safer default when your life is going to be lived outside Kerala.

Where you need the name changed	Which gazette	What we could verify
University of Kerala degree and marksheets	Kerala Gazette	The university's own change-of-name form requires the change to be "notified in the Kerala Government Gazette" and asks for the printed gazette page with the application. Fee Rs 100, routed through your college Principal with a Principal's certificate. Source
SSLC and Kerala board certificates	Kerala Gazette	Kerala Gazette publication is the first eligibility criterion. The file goes through the school head to the Commissioner for Government Examinations under G.O.(MS) No. 114/2022/Gen.Edn dated 30-06-2022
Birth register (LSGD Registrar)	Kerala Gazette	It is the Kerala civil registration system, and Registrars work to LSGD circulars. See the birth certificate section above
Other Kerala universities, MG, Calicut, Kannur, CUSAT	Kerala Gazette expected	By the same logic as the University of Kerala, but each university publishes its own form. Check your own university's form before you file. We have not individually verified all four
Passport (RPO / Passport Seva)	Either, Central preferred	Both are accepted. Central is the safer choice if you will renew or apply from abroad
Aadhaar (UIDAI)	Either	A gazette notification is on the accepted proof-of-identity list either way
PAN (Income Tax / NSDL-Protean)	Either	A gazette notification is accepted supporting proof
Banks, EPFO, insurance, KYC	Either	They follow whatever your Aadhaar and PAN say, so fix those first
Gulf employer, embassy or consular attestation	Central Gazette	Embassies and MEA attestation chains are familiar with the Gazette of India. A state gazette can trigger extra questions abroad
CBSE / ICSE certificates	Either, but the gazette is not the deciding document	Both boards work from public documents and their own procedure. See school and board records

The rule of thumb that saves the most money. If any Kerala university degree, SSLC certificate or Kerala birth record is on your list, do the Kerala Gazette. If your whole future is a passport and a Gulf job, do the Central Gazette. If both are true, do the Kerala Gazette first because it is cheaper and faster within the state, and add the Central Gazette only if a specific authority turns you away. Nobody needs both by default, whatever a service agent tells you.

When a certificate genuinely cannot be changed: the "one and the same person" certificate

Some documents are effectively frozen. A degree certificate from a university that has closed its correction window, an old employer's service record, a foreign qualification. The working solution, which almost no commercial site mentions, is a notarised "one and the same person" certificate: a sworn declaration that the person named X on document number NNNN and the person named Y today are one and the same individual, quoting the document's serial number.

It is not a substitute for the gazette and it does not amend the certificate. What it does is let a verifying officer accept the pairing without a correction. Carry it alongside the gazette notification and the affidavit, keep several notarised originals, and expect to hand one over permanently at each office.

Your family's documents will not update themselves

This is the step that quietly doubles the length of the project, and we have not seen a single competitor mention it. If your name appears on your spouse's or children's records, a dependent visa, a school admission register naming the father, a ration card, an insurance nomination, a passport's parent field, then each of those is a separate application to a separate authority. Your own gazette notification is the evidence for all of them, but nobody propagates it for you.

Do this before you file, not after. Write down every document in the household that carries your name, including your children's. If you are a Gulf-based parent on a family visa, add the visa file and the school in the host country. Then decide whether an initial expansion or a surname addition is worth doing at the same time, because doing it in one gazette notification is one fee, and doing it later is a second one.

Expert insights

Three Things the Experienced Know

✈️

Gulf workers should pick Central

If your name change is for a passport or a Gulf work visa, use the Central Gazette from the start. It is accepted by embassies, so you avoid redoing the process abroad.

🔤

Match your name letter for letter

The single reason files fail is a spelling gap between the affidavit, the newspaper ad and the ID proof. Pick one exact spelling of your new name, including initials, and use it everywhere.

📜

Know the birth certificate exception

A spelling fix on a birth certificate is not a gazette job at all. It goes through the local Registrar under the RBD Act, and since March 2025 Kerala has said a gazette notification alone should support a genuine name change there, without first fixing your SSLC. For a CBSE school name change, you may also need a court order along with the gazette.

Honest view

Benefits & Drawbacks of the Gazette Route

✔ Kerala has a working state option

The Kerala State Gazette, now online for citizen services, is quick and affordable for records within the state.

✔ Central Gazette accepted everywhere

A Central Gazette notification is treated as final proof by UIDAI, the passport office, banks, embassies and universities.

✔ Done from anywhere, even the Gulf

The whole process runs on paperwork, so a resident of Kannur or a worker in Dubai completes it without travelling.

✕ The central route takes weeks

For pan-India validity, the Central Gazette needs two newspaper ads and about 30 to 45 days. It is not instant.

✕ Mistakes cost money and time

A wrong fee category or a spelling gap can mean a rejection, a fresh payment and a restart.

✕ Some records need a different route

Birth certificates follow the Registrar route, so the gazette alone is not always enough.

Rejection fixes

Why Kerala Gazette Applications Get Rejected, and How to Fix Each One

Every row below is a file we have seen come back. The third column is what actually clears it.

What goes wrong	Why the file stops	The exact fix
Different spellings across affidavit, advertisement and ID	The single biggest cause of rejection. The desk cannot certify that three documents describe one person.	Write the new name once, on paper, letter by letter. Copy that one string into the affidavit, both advertisements and the gazette form. Never retype it.
Publishing in only one newspaper	Read as an incomplete public notice.	Publish in one English and one Malayalam daily. Different dates are fine. Keep both complete pages.
Newspaper cutting with no visible date or masthead	The publication cannot be proved.	Save the entire original page, masthead and date visible, not the clipped advertisement box. Photograph it the day it prints.
Affidavit or advertisement gone stale	The Department of Publication does not accept documents older than one year, and submitted documents are not returned.	Run affidavit, advertisements and gazette filing inside one continuous stretch. If more than a year has passed, redo the affidavit and the advertisement.
Wrong stamp paper denomination on the affidavit	The affidavit can be treated as improperly stamped.	Ask the notary which denomination they attest on for a name change declaration in Kerala, and buy that. Do not guess from a Delhi blog.
Wrong fee head on eTreasury or wrong payee on BharatKosh	The money leaves your account without landing against your file, and the fee is non-refundable.	State route: confirm the head of account belongs to the Printing Department before authorising. Central route: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Department of Publication.
Choosing the State Gazette when the name is for a passport or a Gulf visa	You may be asked to redo it through the Central Gazette, paying twice.	If a passport, visa, embassy or pan-India institution is anywhere in your plan, start with the Central Gazette.
Applying for the passport before the gazette arrives	Passport Seva checks your name against the birth certificate and SSLC book; a later gazette means a fresh re-issue application.	Gazette first, then passport re-issue, then Aadhaar and PAN. Never the reverse.
Trying to fix a birth certificate through the gazette	Wrong authority entirely.	Apply to the local Registrar under Section 15 of the RBD Act, 1969, through your municipality, corporation or panchayat.
A government employee filing only a citizen notification	Salary, service book and pension records stay under the old name.	Route the change through your own department or ministry as well, and get it carried into the service book and SPARK.
Assuming the gazette itself updates Aadhaar, PAN and the passport	Nothing updates automatically. Publication is proof, not propagation.	File a separate application with each authority, attaching the gazette PDF as supporting proof.
Paying an agent quoting Rs 999 all-inclusive	The Central Gazette government fee alone is Rs 1,100, so the quote excludes something you will be billed for later.	Ask for the split: government fee, stamp paper, notary, both advertisements, service charge. Any honest quote separates them.

Why YourDoorstep

Why People in Kerala Choose Us

✈️

Great for NRIs and Gulf workers

We handle the whole process remotely, so you can change your name from Dubai, Muscat or Riyadh without flying home.

📰

Correct English & Malayalam ads

We handle both newspaper advertisements for you, in the right format.

📱

No gazette office visit needed

Everything runs on call, WhatsApp and a short form. You stay home anywhere in Kerala.

🧾

One team for your whole name change

The gazette plus updating Aadhaar, PAN, passport and the rest, with clear pricing and no hidden charges.

An example of a case we handle. A nurse from Kottayam working in the Gulf found her passport name did not match her degree certificate, and it was holding up a job change. She sent her old and correct name, address and ID on WhatsApp from abroad. We drafted the affidavit, arranged the notary, booked an English paper and a Malayalam paper, paid the BharatKosh fee, and filed the complete kit in Delhi. In a few weeks the notice appeared in Part IV, and she used the gazette PDF to fix her passport and records. She never flew home. This is an illustrative example of the type of case we handle, not a named client review.

Free downloads

Name Change Kerala: Official Forms and PDF Downloads

Thousands of people every month search for "name change procedure in Kerala pdf download", "Kerala Gazette name change application form pdf" and "name change affidavit format Kerala pdf". Most land on a service page that wants their phone number. The forms are free, they are published by the Kerala Printing Department, and here are the direct links.

Quick Answer

The official Kerala forms live on printing.kerala.gov.in, not on any private site. You need two of them: the Application form for change of Name/Signature/Religion and the Format for Gazette publication (the proforma whose text is printed in the gazette exactly as you type it). Both are free PDFs. The affidavit itself has no official government format, it is a notarial document, and the wording below is what Kerala notaries actually use.

Official Kerala Printing Department forms

Form	What it is for	Download
Application form for change of Name / Signature / Religion	The application you submit to the Government Central Press for a Kerala Gazette citizen-service notification	PDF on printing.kerala.gov.in
Format for Gazette publication (Gazette nota)	The proforma carrying the exact notification text. Whatever you type here is what gets printed, proofread it twice	PDF on printing.kerala.gov.in
Application form for subscribing to the Kerala Government Gazette	Only if you want a standing subscription to the gazette. Not needed for a name change	PDF on printing.kerala.gov.in
All forms, index page	The department's own forms listing, in case a link above moves	printing.kerala.gov.in forms

Note on the first form's filename. The department hosts the name/signature/religion application under a file named "Application-for-Religion-Change.pdf". It is the same combined form, the filename is just a legacy of how it was uploaded in 2019. Do not go looking for a separate "name change" file; there isn't one.

Central Gazette guideline documents

If you are taking the Central route, the Department of Publication publishes its rules as PDFs. These are the documents the counter actually works from, and reading the right one saves you a rejection.

Document	Who it applies to	Fee it states	Download
Guidelines for change of name, adult	Anyone 18 or over	Rs 1,100 in India, Rs 3,500 abroad	PDF
Guidelines for change of name, minor	Filed by a parent or guardian for a child	Rs 1,700 in India, Rs 5,100 abroad	PDF
Guidelines for change of name and gender in public notice	Applicants changing name and gender together	Rs 1,400	PDF
Full guideline index, including the deed format for central government employees	Everyone, especially government servants	None	deptpub.gov.in

Every one of those fee figures carries the same printed caveat: "w.e.f. 01/04/2016 to 31/03/2017". That is the last effective-date range the Department of Publication printed on its own guidelines. Competitors quote these numbers as current with no caveat at all. We are showing you the vintage because it is the honest position: these are the last published rates, they are re-notified from time to time, and BharatKosh will show you the live amount at the moment you pay. Pay what the portal shows, not what any website says.

The legal texts, if you want to read the actual rules

Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, Section 14 (adding a name) and Section 15 (correcting one), on India Code.
Kerala Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 1999, Rule 10 (12-month window, Rs 5 late fee) and Rule 11 (clerical versus substantive correction, two credible witnesses).
RBD (Amendment) Act, 2023, worth knowing because it did not touch Sections 14 or 15, contrary to what several sites claim.
University of Kerala change-of-name form, the form that proves Kerala universities want the Kerala Gazette specifically.

What you cannot download anywhere, and should stop looking for. There is no official government "name change procedure in Kerala" PDF booklet, no official document checklist for a K-SMART birth-certificate name correction, and no published fee schedule or processing timeline for a Section 15 correction. Sites offering these are offering their own reconstruction. The four documents above are the real ones.

People Also Search For: Related Kerala Name Change Searches, Answered

These are the searches people run right after this one. Here is the short, verified answer to each, so you do not have to open ten more tabs.

Name change procedure in Kerala pdf download

There is no official government booklet by that name. What does exist, free, is the Kerala Printing Department's application form for change of Name, Signature or Religion and the Format for Gazette publication. Both are linked in our downloads section. Anyone charging you for these is charging for a free file.

Kerala gazette name change application form pdf download

Direct from the department: the printing.kerala.gov.in forms page. Note the file is hosted under a filename mentioning religion change, it is the same combined name, signature and religion form. There is no separate name-only PDF to hunt for.

Name change affidavit format Kerala pdf download

The affidavit has no official government PDF, because it is a notarial document rather than a departmental form. Any "official affidavit format" file you find is somebody's template. Our clause-by-clause wording is above, in English and Malayalam, ready to hand to a notary on Rs 20 to Rs 200 stamp paper.

Kerala gazette name change status check

Log in at compose.kerala.gov.in and use the portal's status tracking against your application number. This is a real feature of the government's own portal that almost no competing guide mentions. Keep the acknowledgement number rather than the bank SMS, that is what the press desk asks for.

Kerala gazette search and e gazette Kerala pdf download

Published issues are free to search and download at gazette.kerala.gov.in, with egazette.kerala.gov.in as the legacy address. Filing happens on compose.kerala.gov.in; downloading happens on the gazette site. Print several copies of your published page, because most offices keep the one you hand over.

KSMART birth certificate name correction

On the K-SMART citizen portal the options are worded Birth Name Inclusion (the name was never entered, Section 14) and Birth Name Correction (a name is recorded but wrong, Section 15). Panchayat registrations go through the ILGMS citizen portal instead. Picking the wrong menu item is the commonest reason an application stalls. Full detail in the birth certificate section.

Birth certificate name change Kerala documents

Kerala publishes no official checklist and we will not invent one. The Rules require a declaration by two credible persons for a substantive correction. In practice, carry the original birth certificate with its registration number and year, your written declaration of the error, proof of the correct name, the gazette notification if you have one, and for a minor the parents' ID and address proof.

Kerala date of birth change procedure

A different and much harder application than a name change, and not a gazette matter at all. It is a Section 15 correction before the Registrar needing strong documentary proof: the hospital record, the school admission register extract, and the two-credible-persons declaration. Many date disputes end up in court. Do not assume a name change will carry a date change with it.

Kerala gazette fee head of account

For a direct treasury remittance the Government Central Press gives Sty & Ptg 0058 Cost of Gazette (102) for the cost of the gazette and (200) for advertisement charges, with counters open 10.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. on working days. Read the head back to the clerk before you pay, see the caveats.

Kerala gazette publication time 45 to 60 days

That is the Government Central Press's own stated norm: publication normally takes 45 to 60 days from the date of submission. It matches the only genuine first-hand account we could find. Faster does happen, but a 15-day promise is a sales figure, not a departmental commitment.

Kerala to Keralam rename: effect on your documents

The state became Keralam with effect from 25 August 2026 under the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Act, 2026. Nothing you hold becomes invalid, nothing needs re-notifying, and the gazette portals still carry their existing names. Full explanation here.

One and the same person certificate Kerala

Where a certificate genuinely cannot be amended, an old degree, a closed correction window, a foreign qualification, a notarised "one and the same person" declaration quoting the document's serial number lets a verifying officer accept the pairing. It does not replace the gazette. Keep several notarised originals. Detail here.

Name change in Kerala cost

Central Gazette government fee: Rs 1,100 adult, Rs 1,700 minor on BharatKosh, plus Rs 250 per extra alias. From abroad it is Rs 3,500 for an adult and Rs 5,100 for a minor. The Kerala Gazette route has its own fee paid through eTreasury on compose.kerala.gov.in. Stamp paper, notary and two newspaper ads come on top. Rs 999 all-inclusive offers exclude the government fee itself.

compose.kerala.gov.in name change

Kerala is one of the few states where the state gazette application itself runs online: apply on compose.kerala.gov.in (Printing Department), pay through eTreasury, and download the published issue from the same system. Kerala e-gazette issues publish every Tuesday and are valid under the IT Act, 2000.

Kerala gazette download

State route: issues sit on gazette.kerala.gov.in and compose.kerala.gov.in. Central route: search your name on egazette.gov.in under Weekly Gazette, Part IV, published every Saturday. No PDF needs certification.

Name change after marriage in Kerala

Entirely your choice, nothing in law requires it. If you do want a change, the same three steps apply with your marriage certificate added. No court appearance is needed.

Name change from the Gulf

Fully possible without flying home. NRIs use a deed attested by the Indian Embassy or Consulate, the Central Gazette fee for applicants abroad is Rs 3,500 for an adult and Rs 5,100 for a minor, and the rest of the file moves by post and email. Most Gulf-based Malayalis complete the whole thing remotely.

Name change in Kerala university or SSLC records

Kerala boards and universities update records against the gazette notification, so complete the gazette first. Board-specific forms and timelines then apply on top of it.

Name change agent in Kerala

Legally you can file yourself, since the process is paperwork, not court. An agent mainly saves you from format rejections, and because the fee is non-refundable, one bounced file costs more than most assistance. Call 9540005026.

Kerala gazette name change online

compose.kerala.gov.in is the Printing Department's citizen portal, live since 2 October 2021, and it carries the Change of Name service plus status tracking. You register, enter the notification text exactly as it appears in your affidavit, upload the documents and pay through Kerala eTreasury.

Name change affidavit format Kerala

A valid affidavit names the deponent, the old name, the new name, the effective date, the reason, a "henceforth known as" clause, a "one and the same person" clause and a verification paragraph, on non-judicial stamp paper before a Notary Public. The full clause-by-clause wording is printed in the formats section above.

Newspaper advertisement for name change Kerala

One English daily and one Malayalam daily, typically Malayala Manorama or Mathrubhumi alongside an English paper circulating in your district. Different dates are fine. Keep the complete original pages with masthead and date visible, because a cutting with an unreadable date is treated as invalid.

Kerala gazette Part IV change of name

Part IV is the private advertisements and miscellaneous notifications part, where individual name changes, signature changes, religious conversions and caste corrections are published. On the Central Gazette, Part IV publishes every Saturday on egazette.gov.in, which is where you download your own notification.

Gazette office in Kerala address

Government Central Press, Directorate of Printing, Statue, Thiruvananthapuram-695001, with District Forms Offices across the state. Printing is centralised in Thiruvananthapuram regardless of which district you live in, so a Kasaragod file and a Kollam file follow the same queue.

Central gazette vs state gazette Kerala

State is generally faster and cheaper, and serves records that live inside Kerala. Central is the pan-India and overseas standard, and is what the passport office, embassies and GCC employers treat as final proof. If a passport or visa is anywhere in your plan, start with Central and skip the risk of doing it twice.

Initials expansion gazette notification Kerala

Expanding an initial into its full word, K. into Kunnathu, is legally a name change and needs the full affidavit, advertisements and gazette. It is one of the highest-volume Kerala filings, because generations of SSLC books and Aadhaar records carry initials in different positions.

Name change house name to surname Kerala

Common and completely doable. Where records carry only a house name, the gazette lets you formally adopt a surname in the given-name plus surname format that GCC visa forms, Schengen applications and bank systems expect. The house name can stay as a middle element if you want it kept.

Surname change gazette Kerala

Adding, changing or standardising a surname follows the standard route: notarised affidavit, two newspaper advertisements, gazette notification. After marriage the marriage certificate joins the file; after divorce the decree does. No court appearance is involved in any version.

Name change minor child Kerala documents

Birth certificate, the child's Aadhaar, ration or family card, school bonafide certificate or admission register extract, both parents' ID proofs and a guardian declaration. A parent or legal guardian signs the affidavit and files on the child's behalf. Central Gazette minor fee is Rs 1,700.

Gazette notification for name change in Aadhaar card

UIDAI accepts a gazette notification as supporting proof for a name update, but nothing happens automatically. You file a separate Aadhaar update request attaching the gazette PDF. Most people update Aadhaar and PAN first, because other authorities then accept those as base proof.

PAN card name change after gazette

File a PAN change request through NSDL, UTIITSL or the income tax e-filing portal, attaching the gazette copy as proof of the legal change. Do it after Aadhaar, so the two match, because a PAN and Aadhaar name mismatch blocks income tax filing and bank KYC.

Passport name change gazette required or not

It depends on the change. A minor spelling correction may clear without a gazette, while a full name change generally needs one. Sequence matters more than the rule: get the gazette first, then apply for the passport re-issue, because Passport Seva checks your name against the birth certificate and SSLC book.

Kerala gazette name change fees 2026

Central Gazette: Rs 1,100 adult, Rs 1,700 minor, Rs 250 per extra alias, and from abroad Rs 3,500 for an adult or Rs 5,100 for a minor, paid on BharatKosh. Kerala State Gazette publication charge is shown on the portal at filing time and is not published as one fixed statewide figure, so treat any confident number you see elsewhere with suspicion.

Name change certificate Kerala sample

There is no separate certificate. What people call a name change certificate is the certified copy of the published gazette notification. Quote the gazette number, the Part and the date of publication, and any bank, university or Gulf employer can pull the same PDF from the government portal and verify it themselves.

Gazette notification vs affidavit which is required

An affidavit is the declaration; the gazette is the public proof. Affidavits clear minor corrections and satisfy some institutions. The gazette is what universities, the passport office and most banks ask for on a full name change, and it is the only one of the two that a third party can independently verify.

Name change gazette agent Kerala charges

Agent fees are not government-fixed and sit on top of the actual costs. Ask any agent to split the quote into government fee, stamp paper, notary, both advertisements and service charge. A single all-inclusive figure below Rs 1,100 cannot be honest, because that is the Central Gazette fee alone.

Kerala gazette download old issues

Issues published from 2 October 2021 onwards sit on compose.kerala.gov.in, and earlier Kerala Gazette issues are archived by the Printing Department. For the Central Gazette, search Part IV on egazette.gov.in by publication week. Printed central copies stopped being posted from 1 October 2015.

Gazette office Trivandrum contact number

The Directorate of Printing sits at Statue, Trivandrum 695001 on 0471-2331458. For a personal name change the line you actually want is the gazette citizen services desk on 0471-2331360 or 9744583798, email publicationonline2021@gmail.com. The Thiruvananthapuram District Forms Office at Mannanthala is on 0471-2331812.

Gazette office Pathanamthitta

The District Forms Office is at Anugraha Building, Bldg No. XXIII/19 28(2), Kannankara P.O., Pathanamthitta 689645, phone 0468-2271109, email dfoptta.printing@kerala.gov.in. File your change of name application there and it is forwarded to the Director of Printing in Thiruvananthapuram for publication.

Malappuram gazette office contact number

District Forms Office, Building No. 8, Civil Station, Malappuram 676505, phone 0483-2730199, email dfomlpm.printing@kerala.gov.in. Malappuram sees heavy Gulf-related filing, so if your change is for a passport or a labour card, ask for the Central Gazette route rather than the state one.

compose kerala gov in login

Open compose.kerala.gov.in and choose Citizen Registration, which is separate from the departmental login. Complete the user registration, then sign in with your login name, password and captcha. Inside you can submit a change of name, signature or religion request, track its status and search published gazettes.

Kerala gazette name change application form

The Printing Department publishes an "Application form for change of Name / Signature / Religion" on its own forms page at printing.kerala.gov.in. Download it from there rather than a third-party site. It does not carry a clearly readable form number, so ignore any site quoting you one, and use whichever version your District Forms Office hands you.

e gazette Kerala download

Use the eGazette Search on compose.kerala.gov.in, filtering by department, district, taluk or G.O. number, gazette number, year or keyword. Search your own name and year to find your notification. Issues from 2 October 2021 onwards are there; earlier Kerala Gazette issues are archived by the Printing Department.

Birth certificate name change online Kerala

Which portal you use depends on the local body that registered the birth. Corporations and municipalities are on K-Smart at ksmart.lsgkerala.gov.in, gram panchayats are on the ILGMS Citizen Service Portal at citizen.lsgkerala.gov.in, and Sevana Civil Registration at cr.lsgkerala.gov.in remains in use for certificate search. Picking the wrong one is why people say the site does not work.

Name change in ICSE or ISC certificate

Route it through your school to CISCE with the attested amended admission form, attested birth certificate, original marks statement and pass certificate, the correction fee paid online through the school, a newspaper cutting of the change, and an original affidavit signed by a First Class Magistrate. CISCE is the one board that wants a magistrate rather than a notary.

Name change in Kerala state board SSLC certificate

Apply through your school with the original SSLC book, the gazette notification, the affidavit and the admission register extract. The head of the school forwards it to the Commissioner for Government Examinations at Pareeksha Bhavan. A revised fee applies under G.O.(MS) No.114/2022/Gen.Edn; confirm the current amount through your school.

Name change affidavit near me in Kerala

Any Notary Public in Kerala can attest a name change affidavit, so the nearest court complex or a notary's office in your own taluk is enough. You do not need a First Class Magistrate for the gazette, and you do not need to travel to Thiruvananthapuram. The clause-by-clause wording is printed in the formats section of this page.

How to change house name in Kerala

If you mean the house name that sits in your personal name where a surname would go, that is a standard gazette name change. If you mean renaming the property or building itself, that is a local body and revenue record matter handled by your panchayat, municipality or corporation, not the gazette. The two are often confused in search.

Name change office in Kerala

There is no single "name change office". The gazette side is the Government Central Press and your District Forms Office. Birth certificates go to the local Registrar of Births and Deaths. School certificates go through your school to Pareeksha Bhavan, CBSE or CISCE. Knowing which of the four you need is most of the battle.

Our other Kerala pages

Same facts, different entry point. Name change procedure in Kerala is the procedure-first version of this guide, Thiruvananthapuram covers filing at the Government Central Press in person, name change agent in Kerala is for readers who would rather hand the file over, and മലയാളത്തിൽ is the full Malayalam version.

More name change guides

Explore our other verified guides: our national hub Name Change Service in India, How to Change Name Legally in India, and our southern neighbours: Karnataka, the Bangalore guide, Chennai, Hyderabad and Telangana. Same verified facts, local routes.

Filing from outside Kerala

Malayalis file from everywhere, and the Central Gazette route works identically from any city. If you are currently based elsewhere, start with Delhi, Mumbai, Pune or Kolkata, then come back here for the Kerala-side records: SSLC, university and the birth register.

Documents in another language

Gulf employers, foreign universities and consulates routinely ask for translations alongside the gazette notification. Our document translation services cover Malayalam to English certified translations of birth certificates, SSLC books and gazette pages, which is the pairing most Kerala applicants actually need.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Kerala to Keralam rename affect my name change?+

No. The state was renamed Keralam with effect from 25 August 2026 under the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Act, 2026, passed by the Lok Sabha on 11 August and the Rajya Sabha on 12 August 2026. It changes the state's constitutional name, not any procedure and not any document. Affidavits, advertisements, gazette notifications and certificates already issued in the name "Kerala" remain fully valid, and nothing needs to be re-notified or re-paid for. As at this update the portals still read compose.kerala.gov.in and gazette.kerala.gov.in.

Do I really need two newspaper advertisements?+

Not for the Central Gazette. The Department of Publication's own guidelines say the change "should be advertised in one of the daily local leading newspapers". Almost every competing page tells you two are compulsory, and that is not what the rule says. That said, a second Malayalam insertion costs little and makes life easier with Kerala institutions downstream, so we still recommend both. The point is that nobody can reject your Central file for having run one.

What does a minor abroad pay for a Central Gazette name change?+

Rs 5,100, not Rs 3,500. The Rs 3,500 figure that every Kerala guide quotes is the adult non-resident rate. The Department of Publication publishes a separate guideline for minors giving Rs 1,700 in India and Rs 5,100 abroad. This matters most for Gulf-based Malayali parents fixing a child's name for a dependent visa, which is exactly the group being under-quoted.

Which gazette do Kerala universities and the SSLC board accept?+

The Kerala Gazette, specifically. The University of Kerala's own change-of-name form states the change "has to be notified in the Kerala Government Gazette" and asks for the printed gazette page with the application, at a fee of Rs 100 routed through your college Principal. SSLC corrections list Kerala Gazette publication as the first eligibility criterion. The common advice that "the Central Gazette is better because it is nationwide" is wrong for anyone with Kerala institutions downstream.

Where are the official Kerala name change forms?+

On the Kerala Printing Department's own site, free. You need the Application form for change of Name/Signature/Religion and the Format for Gazette publication, both published at printing.kerala.gov.in. The first is hosted under a filename mentioning religion change; it is the same combined form. There is no official government "name change procedure" PDF booklet, and nobody should be charging you for a free departmental form.

Can the Registrar change my father's name on my birth certificate?+

No. The Kerala High Court has held that changing the father's name on a birth certificate requires a DNA report and a court order, and that Registrars are empowered only to correct clerical errors, irregularly added details and mistakes arising from format changes. A Registrar cannot decide paternity administratively, so this one genuinely does go to court.

Will I get a printed gazette copy by post?+

No. Printed Central Gazette copies stopped from 1 October 2015. Once published, you download the PDF from egazette.gov.in under Weekly Gazette, Part IV, published every Saturday, and Kerala Gazette issues from the state portals, published every Tuesday. Neither needs certification.

How can I change my name through the gazette in Kerala?+

Make a notarised affidavit, publish the change in two newspapers (one English, one Malayalam), then file for a gazette notification. You can use the Kerala State Gazette through the Government Central Press, or the Central Gazette for pan-India and overseas use.

Does Kerala have its own state gazette for name change?+

Yes. The Kerala Gazette, run by the Government Central Press (Directorate of Printing) in Thiruvananthapuram, accepts private advertisements for change of name, and can be applied for online at compose.kerala.gov.in.

Which gazette should I use, Kerala or Central?+

The Kerala State Gazette is fine for records within the state. For a passport, PAN, bank, a central job or work abroad, especially in the Gulf, the Central Gazette is the safer, pan-India choice.

What is the fee for name change in Kerala?+

The Kerala State Gazette charges a modest advertisement fee plus the cost of the gazette. The Central Gazette fee is Rs 1,100 for adults and Rs 1,700 for minors, paid on BharatKosh. Stamp paper, notary and newspaper ads are extra. Each extra alias name adds Rs 250, and applicants living abroad pay Rs 3,500.

How long does a name change take in Kerala?+

The Government Central Press states that Kerala Gazette publication normally takes 45 to 60 days from the date of submission. The Central Gazette runs roughly 30 to 45 days after a complete file reaches the Department of Publication. Add about a week before either for the affidavit and the newspaper advertisements. Files do move faster than the stated norm, but any service promising 10 to 15 days is quoting its best case, not the department's commitment.

Can I change my name from the Gulf or abroad?+

Yes. Many Kerala applicants live in the Gulf. The whole process can be handled remotely, and for overseas use the Central Gazette is best, with the deed attested by the Indian Embassy or Consulate.

Where is the Kerala gazette office?+

The Government Central Press, Directorate of Printing, Statue, Thiruvananthapuram-695001, with online citizen services at compose.kerala.gov.in and District Forms Offices across the state.

How old can my affidavit and newspaper ads be?+

Not more than one year. The Department of Publication does not accept documents older than one year, so file the gazette while your papers are fresh. Documents once submitted are not returned, so keep clear copies.

Do you help update Aadhaar, PAN, Voter ID and birth certificate after the gazette?+

Yes. We help update Aadhaar, PAN, Voter ID, passport, driving licence, bank records, Kerala board and university certificates, and insurance policies with your gazette PDF. Birth certificate corrections are handled through the local Registrar route, not the gazette.

Can I change my name online in Kerala?+

Yes. The Kerala citizen gazette service is online at compose.kerala.gov.in for name, religion, gender and caste changes, with fees paid via eTreasury. The affidavit and newspaper ads are done offline.

Where do I download my gazette once it is published?+

For the Kerala gazette, through the Central Press or egazette.kerala.gov.in. For the Central Gazette, from egazette.gov.in under Weekly Gazette, Part IV.

Do I need a lawyer to change my name in Kerala?+

No. A notary attests the affidavit. Help from a consultant mainly saves you from format mistakes and rejections.

Can I change my name without a gazette notification?+

For small local needs an affidavit may pass, but for passport, PAN, bank and job records most departments now ask for the gazette.

Which newspapers should I use in Kerala?+

One English paper such as The Hindu or The New Indian Express, and one Malayalam paper such as Malayala Manorama or Mathrubhumi.

I want to change my surname after marriage. What extra do I need?+

Add your marriage certificate to the file. The affidavit states your maiden name and married name. The rest is the same.

Do I need signatures from two gazetted officers on my affidavit?+

For an ordinary name change, no. That extra step mainly applies to government employees, who follow their department's deed rules.

What if there is a spelling mismatch in my documents?+

Mismatched spellings across the affidavit, newspaper ad and ID proof are the biggest cause of rejection. Every spelling must match exactly.

How do I update Aadhaar and PAN after the gazette?+

Use the gazette PDF as proof and apply through the normal Aadhaar and PAN update routes, or let us handle it for you.

Can NRIs from Kerala change their name?+

Yes, with valid Indian ID. Someone living abroad needs the deed attested by the Indian Embassy or Consulate, and the Central Gazette route is recommended.

People also search for: Name change agent in Kerala, Kerala gazette office address, name change in birth certificate Kerala, compose.kerala.gov.in name change, surname change after marriage, passport name change process, Aadhaar name change online.

Verified against

Official Sources & References for Name Change in Kerala

The portals, offices and rules on this page are checked against official Government sources, not copied from other blogs.

Directorate of Printing, Government of Kerala (Government Central Press)Official department for the Kerala Gazette and citizen name change services in Thiruvananthapuram.
compose.kerala.gov.in (Kerala e-Gazette)Official online portal to apply for name, religion, gender and caste changes in the Kerala Gazette.
e-Gazette portal, Government of IndiaWhere the published Central Gazette (Part IV) notification is downloaded.
BharatKosh (NTRP), Ministry of FinanceOfficial portal for paying the Central Gazette name change fee.

Government fees and timelines can be revised from time to time. Always confirm the current figures on the official portals above before you apply.

In short

The Short Version: Name Change in Kerala

Changing your name in Kerala comes down to three clean steps: affidavit, newspaper ad, and the gazette notification. Kerala gives you two routes, its own State Gazette through the Government Central Press (now online at compose.kerala.gov.in), and the Central Gazette, which is valid across India and abroad. Publish in one English and one Malayalam paper. The state gazette often takes 2 to 4 weeks, and Gulf workers can do it all remotely. Remember that a birth certificate fix is a Registrar job, not a gazette one. Whether you are in Kochi, Kozhikode or Dubai, you can get your name changed from home, and we update your Aadhaar, PAN and passport once it is done.

How to Change Your Name Legally in Kerala (2026)

Watch: Name Change Procedure in Kerala Explained in Hindi

Kerala name change at a glance

Key takeaways

Kerala State Gazette vs Central Gazette

Kerala Gazette Office

Gazette Office in Kerala: District Forms Office Contacts

Head office, Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum)

District Forms Office in your district

compose.kerala.gov.in: Registration, Login and the Application Form

What COMPOSE is

How to register and log in

The official application form

Searching and downloading a published gazette

Applying from the Gulf or Abroad

Initials, House Names and Single Names: The Kerala Cases Other Guides Ignore

1. Expanding your initials (K. Anil Kumar to Kunnathu Anil Kumar)

2. House name instead of a surname

3. A single name with no surname at all, and the Gulf visa problem

The 3 Legal Steps

Make the affidavit

Publish in newspapers

Get the gazette

Step 1: Make the name change affidavit

Step 2: Publish the change in two newspapers

Step 3: Get the gazette notification

Name Change in Kerala: The Whole Process on One Page

The Exact Affidavit and Newspaper Wording (Nobody Else Prints This)

Name change affidavit, clause by clause

Notary or First Class Magistrate? Settle this before you pay

Newspaper advertisement wording, English

Newspaper advertisement wording, Malayalam

Is one English plus one Malayalam paper actually compulsory?

What Other Websites Get Wrong About Name Change in Kerala

Documents Required for Name Change in Kerala

Name Change Fees in Kerala (2026)

How to Actually Pay the Gazette Fee: eTreasury and BharatKosh

Kerala State Gazette: the eTreasury route

The head of account nobody else publishes

Central Gazette: the BharatKosh (NTRP) route

Newspaper Publication in Kerala

Name Change Services We Handle in Kerala

Aadhaar Card

PAN Card

Voter ID (EPIC)

Passport

Driving Licence

Bank & KYC

Kerala Board & University records

Birth Certificate

LIC & Insurance

Ration Card & Property

Cities in Kerala We Serve

After the Gazette: Update Your Records

Your Gazette Is Published. Now Download It, Verify It, and Fix It If It Is Wrong

How to download your published gazette notification

How a bank, employer or passport office verifies it

What if the published gazette has a spelling mistake?

If you lose your gazette copy years later

Tracking your application while it is pending

Marriage, Divorce, Minors & Spelling

After marriage

Name change after divorce

For a minor

Spelling & birth certificate

Four Situations Where the Ordinary Gazette Route Is Not Enough

Government employees

Transgender applicants

SSLC, Plus Two and university records

Birth certificate

Birth Certificate Name Change in Kerala: The Full Procedure

First decide: are you adding a name, or correcting one?

How Kerala decides who can approve your correction

Doing it online in Kerala: which portal is yours

What to actually carry to the Registrar

So do I need a gazette for my birth certificate at all?

The March 2025 relaxation: what changed, and what we cannot confirm

April 2026: the newest circular, and what it is not

You get one shot, apply for everything together

Name Change in SSLC, CBSE and ICSE Certificates