When an author’s legal or preferred name changes after a paper has already been published — because of marriage, divorce, religious conversion, or gender transition — most major scholarly publishers now let the author update the byline on the published record itself, rather than leaving the old name attached permanently or requiring a public correction notice that draws attention to the change. This is a relatively recent, and still uneven, shift: as recently as the early 2020s, changing a name on a published article typically meant a formal corrigendum, which republished the old name alongside the new one and, in effect, outed the reason for the change to every future reader.
This guide summarizes how eight major publishers — Wiley, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), and Science/AAAS, plus Springer Nature — currently handle retroactive author name change requests, what each does and doesn’t require, and how the change propagates through DOI, Crossref, and indexing metadata. It also covers the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance that most of these policies are built on.
What counts as a “retroactive author name change”
Operationally, a retroactive author name change is a request from an author (or, in rare and carefully scrutinized cases, someone acting with clear documented authorization from the author) to replace their name as it appears on one or more already-published works — in the byline, acknowledgments, email address, and any other place the old name appears in the article record — with a new name, without altering the substance, findings, or authorship composition of the work itself. It is distinct from:
- Adding, removing, or reordering authors — a substantive authorship change, which COPE treats under a different flowchart and which normally does require a correction notice and co-author sign-off. See CASRAI’s comparison of authorship changes made before vs. after publication.
- Correcting a misspelled name — a factual error correction, typically handled as a standard corrigendum since no identity or privacy concern is usually involved.
- Author name disambiguation — resolving which published works belong to which real person when two authors share a similar name or ORCID/CRIS records have merged incorrectly; see CASRAI’s guide to author name disambiguation via ORCID and CRIS systems. That is an identity-matching problem; a retroactive name change is a request to change the name itself.
Why this became a policy priority
The push for discreet retroactive name-change policies came primarily from transgender and non-binary researchers, whose deadname (a former name no longer used, most commonly discussed in the context of gender transition) remaining permanently attached to their published body of work created a documented risk: every future citation, search result, or CV entry could involuntarily disclose their gender history to colleagues, students, or the public. A standard corrigendum — which by design places the old and new names side by side, permanently, in the citation record — made this worse rather than better. Beginning around 2020, a coordinated push from transgender scientists, journal editors, and COPE led most major publishers to adopt a common alternative: update the record directly, treat the request as confidential, and skip the correction notice entirely unless the author specifically wants one.
Publishers generally apply the same discreet process regardless of the underlying reason (marriage, divorce, religious conversion, gender transition, or any other reason), and most do not require the author to disclose why they are requesting the change or to provide legal documentation. Per COPE’s guidance, name-change requests should be handled sensitively and without demanding that authors explain their reasons.
COPE’s guidance
COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics) formed a working group in 2019 — after seeing a rise in name-change queries and cases — to develop cross-publisher guidance, published as its position statement “Handling requests for author name changes.” The core principles most publisher policies now reflect:
- Retrospective name changes can be made without a formal correction notice unless the author requests one.
- Publishers should make reasonable efforts to remove the old name from internal and public-facing records to minimize the risk of the change being noticed or the old name resurfacing.
- Requests should be handled confidentially and sensitively — editorial and production staff should not require an author to justify or disclose the reason for the change.
- The process should be distinct from, and not treated the same as, disputed or contested authorship changes, which still require the standard corroboration and correction process.
See also CASRAI’s COPE dictionary entry and COPE Guidelines Explained for COPE’s broader remit.
Publisher-by-publisher policies
Wiley
Wiley updated its name-change policy across its journal portfolio so that a name change is applied directly to the published version of record with no correction notice and no notification to co-authors. The updated policy was framed explicitly as a step toward a more inclusive publishing environment and does not require the author to provide proof of the name change.
Elsevier
Elsevier’s “inclusive author name change” policy allows an author to request that their name be updated directly on already-published papers across Elsevier’s primary publishing platforms, with no correction notice or other public note attached, described by Elsevier as supporting an “invisible” update for authors — including transgender authors — who have a strong interest in privacy.
Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis’s Author Services describes a process for updating an author’s name on already-published articles that, like the others above, does not require an accompanying correction notice — though the author can request one if they’d prefer the change made publicly and visibly rather than silently.
Springer Nature
Springer Nature (via its SNCS contact form for inclusive name changes) lets an author who has changed their name request that the update be applied to previously published works either silently, with no notification or visible trace, or through a standard, publicly visible Correction, at the author’s choice.
American Chemical Society (ACS)
ACS gives authors two options for updating their name on prior ACS publications, and its policy explicitly extends the same silent-update option to related identity fields — name, pronouns, email address, photos, indexing, and other metadata — not just the printed byline, framing the policy as reducing barriers to inclusion, professional mobility, and proper credit for the author’s full body of work.
American Psychological Association (APA)
APA’s published policy on author name changes after publication states that APA will update the author’s name without publishing an accompanying correction notice. One notable wrinkle: for articles published before APA posted the policy in August 2020, co-authors are notified of the change so they can update their own records — a departure from the fully silent approach most other publishers on this list use regardless of publication date. Requests are handled via APA’s journals inbox. The policy is applied regardless of the requesting author’s reason, though it originated from advocacy by APA’s Division 44 (the Society for the Psychological Study of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity).
American Society for Microbiology (ASM)
ASM Journals created a name-change pathway covering reasons including, but not limited to, marriage, divorce, religious conversion, and gender identity changes. ASM does not require evidence of a legal name change or identification, updates the byline, email address, and any other instance of the name in the paper’s PDF and HTML, does not require a formal correction or co-author notification, and works with indexers so the update also propagates to services like PubMed and Web of Science. Authors must attest they are requesting the change for themselves; requesting a change on someone else’s behalf is treated by ASM as a serious ethics violation.
Science / AAAS
The Science family of journals (published by AAAS) offers a discreet name-change process: authors email a request with the ORCID iD reflecting their new name and citations to the specific papers to be updated. Science updates the byline, acknowledgments, and author email addresses across all published formats with no public notification, and works directly with Crossref so future citations to the affected papers resolve under the new name. The policy took effect February 18, 2021, as part of a wider wave of similar publisher announcements around the same period.
What’s common across all eight, and what varies
Common across every publisher above: authors initiate the request themselves (a third party requesting on an author’s behalf is treated as suspicious, not routine); the underlying reason is not required for the process to move forward; and the update is applied to the live published version rather than issued as a separate, appended notice. Where they vary:
- Whether a correction notice is ever used: most (Wiley, Elsevier, ASM, APA, Science) apply the update silently by default; Taylor & Francis and Springer Nature explicitly offer the author a choice between a silent update and a visible Correction.
- Co-author notification: APA is the outlier for pre-2020 articles, where co-authors are notified; every other policy reviewed here does not notify co-authors by default.
- Proof of name change: Wiley and ASM explicitly state no legal documentation is required; the others do not describe a documentation requirement either, though publishers can vary this on a case-by-case basis, particularly for large or complex changes (e.g., changing an author’s identity across an entire back catalog).
- Scope of what’s updated: ACS and ASM explicitly extend the update to related metadata (pronouns, photos, indexing records), not just the name string itself; other publishers’ public policy language focuses more narrowly on the byline, email, and acknowledgments.
How the change propagates through DOI, Crossref, and ORCID
A name change on a published paper is a metadata edit, not a new publication — the article keeps its existing DOI, and the DOI continues to resolve to the same content, now displaying the updated name. Publishers deposit the corrected metadata with Crossref (Science explicitly states it works with Crossref for this reason), which is how downstream systems — citation managers, Google Scholar, PubMed, and other indexes — eventually pick up the new name on future citations. This does not retroactively rewrite how the paper was already cited in other people’s reference lists; new citations should resolve to the corrected name, but pre-existing citations elsewhere are not force-corrected.
An ORCID iD is where this gets most useful for the author going forward: because ORCID links a persistent identifier to the person rather than to a name string, an author can update the name displayed on their ORCID record once, and any publisher work correctly linked to that ORCID iD associates with the person under their current name — separate from, and in addition to, requesting the underlying publisher-side record be updated. Several publishers (Science/AAAS explicitly) ask for the author’s current ORCID iD as part of the name-change request itself, both to confirm identity and to make sure the corrected record links correctly going forward. See CASRAI’s guide on registering, finding, and searching for ORCID iDs if the author doesn’t already have one on record.
How to request a name change: general steps
The exact channel differs by publisher, but the request generally follows this shape:
- Identify every affected article — DOIs or full citations for each paper that needs updating, since most publishers process this per-article or per-portfolio rather than searching for the author’s full back catalog automatically.
- Contact the publisher through its stated channel — a dedicated form (Elsevier, Springer Nature/SNCS), a journal or author-services inbox (APA, Taylor & Francis, ASM), or a submission-help email with the affected DOIs (Science/AAAS).
- Provide the new name and, where requested, an ORCID iD reflecting it, so the update can be linked correctly for future works.
- State a preference on visibility, where the publisher offers a choice — silent update vs. a public Correction (Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature) — since not every publisher defaults the same way.
- Update the ORCID record separately, since a publisher-side correction does not automatically rename the author’s ORCID profile or vice versa.
Because policies, required documentation, and turnaround time can change, always confirm current requirements directly on the specific publisher’s own author-services or editorial-policy pages before submitting a request — this guide summarizes policy as publicly stated but individual journals within a large publisher’s portfolio can occasionally apply additional local requirements.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to explain why I’m changing my name?
Under COPE’s guidance and every policy reviewed here, no. Publishers are not supposed to require a reason, and staff are expected to handle the request confidentially regardless of the reason given, if one is given at all.
Will my co-authors be told?
Usually not by default. The one documented exception among the publishers covered here is APA, which notifies co-authors for name changes on articles published before APA’s policy took effect in August 2020. Authors who want a specific co-author notified, or who want to avoid notification, should say so explicitly in the request.
Does the paper get a new DOI?
No. The existing DOI is preserved and continues to resolve to the same article; only the metadata (and the byline shown in the published HTML/PDF) is updated.
Can I request a silent update instead of a public correction?
At most of the publishers covered here, silent (no correction notice) is the default, not something you have to ask for. Taylor & Francis and Springer Nature frame it explicitly as the author’s choice between silent and a visible Correction.
Does this cover a preprint, not just the published version of record?
Publisher name-change policies as described here apply to the version(s) of record hosted on the publisher’s own platform. A preprint hosted on a separate server (arXiv, bioRxiv, SSRN, and similar) is a different system with its own update process and is not automatically updated by a publisher-side name change request — check the specific preprint server’s own policy separately.
