[ElderKorihor]

When I got married and changed my name, I ended up having to spend a couple hours a day arguing at the passport office for three consecutive days. There are all kinds of arcane rules about it and the staff are not allowed to tell you what they are because they have been literally classified as state secrets since early in the Obama era. Plus, in my case they wouldn't even have a re-look at the rulebook to make sure they were getting it right, they were just going by memory.

Eventually I was able to track down the underlying laws that the relevant rules were based on and call the head office in Charleston who put things right, but who knows what would've happened had I not been a native English speaker.

Some of this may have changed, it looks like "8 FAM 403.1-4(D)" would've been the rule that I needed back when I did this, and it does not appear to be currently classified, but lots of other rules still are. Point is, it may not be as simple as you'd think to "just" get a new passport.