KU Account - Changing Your Legal and Preferred Names

Summary

This article will describe how to change your display name here at KU or how to update a legal name change. Changes to your preferred name can take up to 24 hours to complete and be seen.

Body

Summary

How you change your legal and/or preferred name depends entirely on your affiliation with the university. If you're unsure of your primary affiliation, you can check your details on the MyIdentity Preferred Name page at https://myidentity.ku.edu/services/preferred-name.

Preferred name is what KU IT uses to display your name in all electronic systems. If a users account does not have a preferred name set. The legal name will take its place.

Change KU Legal Name

Faculty/Staff: Contact Human Resources at hrdept@ku.edu or at 785-864-4946.
Students: Fill out a form to submit to the Registrars office. The form is located at https://deptsec.ku.edu/~admiss/forms/form/4.
Graduate Assistants: Update your name in both locations by filling out the form above for their student account in addition to contacting Human Resources. This includes:
- Graduate Assistants
- Graduate Teaching Assistants
- Graduate Research Assistants

Change KU Preferred Name

This change will affect how your name is displayed in university systems like: Email, Canvas, and Class Rosters.

User who need to correct the Case Sensitivity of their name. Example JOHN SMITH to John Smith. Please reach out to the KU IT Customer Service Center and let us know after you've completed the steps described below. If the steps are not completed the system may automatically undo the changes we put into place.

Faculty/Staff

Contact Human Resources by hrdept@ku.edu or 785-864-4946

You will need to specify that you want to update your preferred name.

Students

Go to Enroll & Pay at https://sa.ku.edu and log in.
Click the Personal Details tile
Select Update Name.
Select Preferred.
Edit the name information found there.

Graduate Assistants

Update your preferred name in both Enroll and Pay for the student account (see Student steps above) in addition to updating your preferred name with Human Resources (see Faculty/Staff steps above). This includes:

Graduate Assistants
Graduate Teaching Assistants
Graduate Research Assistants

Changes to your preferred name can take up to 24 hours to complete and be seen.

Article Changelog

1/24/2026

Article updated to basic visual standard.

Details

Article ID: 18823

Created

Tue 10/8/24 3:24 PM

Modified

Sun 1/25/26 4:52 PM