People applying for Canadian Citizenship, how do you go about changing your name?
I have a single name on my passport.
Wondering what's the easiest way to go?
After acquiring passport? Before applying for citizenship?
You apply to change your name in your province of residence. In most provinces it's a paper exercise, but can take anywhere from a month to six months (depends on province, some have had backlogs/delays since covid). With that you'll get a legal change of name document which you can use to apply for citizenship, new PR card, every other doc. For citizenship app, you should/best to have at least one or a couple docs changed to new name (eg driver's license).
Now next question: change name before, after or during citizenship app. My view is - pick a lane, either before or after. During - there's a risk it may get delayed or cause minor problems at IRCC, but depends on how urgently you want each step done. If citizenship is priority (scheduling wise), do that first. (You can actually change name or start change of name during process and then change the docs after getting citizenship certificate)
One VERY important bit of advice: if you get citizenship first, APPLY FOR PASSPORT WITH CHANGE OF NAME DOCUMENTATION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. All you need for this is citizenship certificate + change of name decree. Only apply for a new citizenship certificate AFTER getting the passport - because they will keep the old citizenship certificate while processing, i.e. you may not be able to get a passport until it's done. (In reality, you don't ever need to get around to changing citizenship certificate if you don't wish to, 99% of the time the only thing people use it for is to get their passport; if you want to change it, fine, bjut it's low priority).
