§ 1279.5.Common Law Right Not Abrogated; Petition By Prisoners; Petition By Persons Required to Register As Sex Offenders

This section starts by confirming that Title 8's court process isn't the only way to change a name in California -- the common-law right to adopt and use a new name survives, except where this title or § 1277.5 says otherwise. It then turns to two groups for whom the formal petition process needs special rules.

People under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or sentenced to county jail, keep the right to petition for a name or gender change, but they have to notify the department or sheriff's department when they file. Once the change is granted, every record involving that person has to use the new name, listing any earlier name as an alias rather than erasing it from the file.

Registered sex offenders face the opposite presumption. A court has to deny a name-change petition from someone required to register under Penal Code § 290, unless the court affirmatively finds that granting it serves the interest of justice and won't hurt public safety. If the court does grant it, the petitioner has five working days to notify local police or the sheriff -- and campus police too, if the petitioner lives on a University of California or California State University campus. To police this rule, courts check the state's law enforcement databases, and every petitioner has to declare under penalty of perjury that they aren't a registrant; where a court lacks database access, local law enforcement fills that gap instead.