keesan@bbncca.ARPA (Morris Keesan) (01/12/84)
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You should have no major problems with changing your signature, and as far
as I know it's perfectly legal. I changed my signature radically about ten
years ago, as part of the process of changing my handwriting from the fairly
illegible and unattractive style I developed in elementary to the italic
calligraphy I now affect. My wife also changed her signature (but not her
name) around the time we got married, because her signature had degenerated
too far into illegibility. The problems you should be aware of are
a) If you have any bank accounts, etc. which allow money to be
disbursed on the authority of your signature (on checks, withdrawal slips,
etc.) the implicit contract you have with the bank is that they will only
hand out said funds given the signature you provided them when you opened
the account. You might want to talk to your bank and see it you should
give them a new signature card.
b) Any identification you have which is based on your signature is
only as good as the match between your signature on the ID and the
signature you're trying to verify. My wife had some problems with this
(signing things with signatures which matched her driver's license) until
enough time had gone by for her IDs to recycle. You may have some trouble
for a while getting people to accept checks.
The legality of the procedure is probably the same as the legality of a
common-law name change -- i.e. it's okay as long as there's no intent to
defraud.
--
Morris M. Keesan
{decvax,linus,wjh12}!bbncca!keesan
keesan @ BBN-UNIX.ARPA