Has Melania Trump changed her name legally and when did that occur?

1. Born Melanija Knavs; professional rebrand to Melania Knauss

Contemporary and historical profiles agree that she was born Melanija Knavs in Slovenia and at some point adopted the spelling Melania Knauss as a professional name while building a European modeling career in Milan and Paris, a change noted in encyclopedic entries and biographical summaries that treat the Knauss spelling as her pre-marriage professional identity ^{[4] [5] [6]}.

2. Marriage in January 2005 and the reported name change to Trump

Biographical outlets recount that Melania and Donald Trump married on January 22, 2005, and that “following their wedding, Melania Knauss officially changed her name to Melania Trump,” an account used by at least one long-form profile that frames the timing of her surname adoption as immediately post‑nuptials ^[1]; this is consistent with public usage from that point forward, including campaign and White House materials that refer to her as Melania Trump ^{[2] [7]}.

3. Citizenship milestones and documentary/administrative references

Government and historical organizations treat her as Melania Trump in tandem with other milestones—most notably her naturalization as a U.S. citizen in 2006—which further anchored the Trump surname in official contexts and public records as represented in White House archives and the White House Historical Association ^{[2] [3]}. These institutional references corroborate the public identity change but do not, in the sourced material provided, produce the underlying legal paperwork.

4. What the reporting does—and does not—prove about a formal, legal name-change process

The sources presented (biography sites, institutional bios, and encyclopedias) uniformly show she has used the surname Trump since 2005 and that she previously used Knauss, but none of the items in the provided set includes a primary legal document (for example, a notarized marriage certificate copy or a court order) that would incontrovertibly demonstrate the procedural method used to change her name (marriage certificate vs. separate court petition) or the exact filing date; that absence means the claim that she “officially changed” her name after the wedding rests on secondary reporting and official biographical entries rather than on visible legal filings in the supplied reporting ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

5. Alternative viewpoints, ambiguity, and implications for future verification

Alternative descriptions in the reporting emphasize different terminology—some sources say she “changed the spelling” to Knauss while others say she “officially changed” to Trump after marriage—revealing how media and institutional summaries can blend professional name choices and legal changes ^{[4] [5] [1]}; because the supplied material lacks the primary legal record, a definitive forensic statement about the specific legal mechanism and exact date cannot be made from these sources alone, and verifying that would require access to marriage or court records or an official statement that explicitly describes the legal step taken.

Conclusion

The available reporting establishes a clear timeline of public identity: born Melanija Knavs, adopted Melania Knauss as a modeling name, and thereafter used Melania Trump beginning with and immediately after her January 22, 2005 marriage to Donald Trump—with institutional bios and historical summaries treating her as Melania Trump thereafter and noting her U.S. naturalization in 2006 ^{[4] [5] [1] [2] [3]}. However, within the supplied sources there is no cited primary legal document that pins down the exact legal act or filing date that transformed her name, so while the narrative that she changed her name legally after the wedding is well supported in secondary sources, the precise legal-record detail is not present in this set of documents.