Changing My Child's Name with No Father Named on the Birth Certificate

[jkmra]

My question involves name change laws in the State of: Missouri

I would like to know if I can easily change the name of my child who is over one year of age. She currently has my maiden name. The biological father is not named on the birth certificiate nor was paternity established. I married before she was one and she only knows my husband as dad and we would like to keep it that way. She was born in another state and we now live in Missouri. She is begging for her name to be the same as the rest of the family. She uses the family name for everything except legal school documents. We attempted step parent adoption but the bio would not respond to the correspondence and it became too costly when the lawyer wanted to serve him in a different state.

If this is too difficult, what about adding the family name to hers giving her four names? Or to leagally hyphenate it? Our preference of course is to drop my maiden name and change it to the family name.

Thanks for your time.

[jk]

one of the regulars here refers to this as a backdoor adoption. Courts do not like backdoor adoptions. You will have to attempt to contact the presumed father when attempting to change the name. Since it was too expensive when trying to adopt, it will be too expensive now.

adding a name or hyphenating would require the same actions as just changing her name.