From the day I was born my parents, family & friends always called me by my second name, so I decided to drop the unused first name.
I changed my name online with The Legal Deed Poll service. It was very straight forward and I ordered extra copies of the “Legal Copy”. That way I didn’t have to send the original document to all the companies in the post. It also meant that if companies didnt send the copies of the legal copy back it didn’t really matter. There were one or two issues where companies didn’t change all of their databases, for example some letters/statements etc might be to addressed to the correct name but the salutation was still in my previous name. These small issues were normally sorted out on the phone. The only problem I had was with O2. When I login to my account it is still in my previous name. They insist that they have updated all of their databases, even after I have sent them screen dumps to prove that they haven’t.
These issues are small in comparison to the issues I had before I changed my name. As I had always been called by middle name, I sometimes wouldn’t hear calls for me by my first name (ie at the Doctors, Dentist etc). I always had issues with work email addresses, as IT departments would issue an address with my first name and I would then spend weeks or months trying to get them changed to my known name! I once turned up at the airport to discover my friend had booked the ticket in my known name, rather than my first name. Of course the only way the airline would change the ticket to match my passport was by paying a surcharge. In the end changing my name was the only option!