Are there public records confirming the date of Zack Polanski's name change?
Executive summary
Contemporary reporting about Zack Polanski uniformly states he changed his name when he was 18, with several outlets adding that the change restored his ancestral surname and was effected by deed poll, but none of the provided sources supplies a primary public record showing the exact date of that legal change [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. The available journalism therefore establishes strong, consistent secondary-source reporting on the timing and motive of the change while leaving unanswered whether a contemporaneous public deed-poll enrollment or equivalent official record is publicly available in these materials [3] [6].
1. What the reportage actually says about timing and motive
Major profiles and interviews consistently report that Polanski was born David Paulden and “changed his name at 18,” framing the decision as a restoration of a familial, Jewish surname and a move to differentiate himself from a stepfather called David; this formulation appears in multiple outlets including Wikipedia, The Guardian, the BBC and the Big Issue [1] [2] [5] [4]. Feature pieces add contextual details—some say he took “Polanski” to honour heritage after his family had anglicised their name, and that “Zack” was chosen for personal reasons—details echoed across The Observer, New Statesman and other profiles [7] [6] [8].
2. Claims of a deed poll and where that claim appears
At least one source in the supplied corpus explicitly states the change was made “by deed poll,” and frames that as a legal act Polanski undertook at 18; that framing appears most directly in a column in The Jewish Chronicle which says he “changed it by deed poll” [3]. Other outlets describe the change as a legal name change without reproducing or linking to a deed-poll certificate or government enrollment, repeating Polanski’s own account of having changed his name at the age of 18 [2] [4] [9].
3. What is absent from the public reporting provided here
None of the supplied sources includes a scanned deed-poll document, a High Court enrollment reference, an official registry entry, or a link to a primary public record that lists an exact calendar date for the legal change; the corpus is composed of secondary reporting (profiles, interviews, opinion pieces, and encyclopedia entries) that cite the age and motive but not a dated legal instrument [1] [2] [7] [3]. Consequently, while the journalistic record is consistent on “age 18,” there is no primary public-document citation in these materials that would confirm the precise date or provide an enrollment number.
4. Why this gap matters and possible explanations
The absence of an attached deed-poll or enrollment citation in these articles is significant because “changed at 18” is a factual claim that can be precise only if supported by primary documentation; newspapers often accept personal testimony or party biographies for such biographical points, and at least one opinion piece cites a deed-poll claim without reproducing the instrument itself [3]. That pattern explains how consistent secondary reporting can coexist with a lack of accessible primary proof in the provided sources: journalists repeatedly relay the same account from interviews and party materials rather than publishing the underlying legal document [2] [4] [5].
5. Balance, alternative readings and stated limitations
The reporting is uniform and specific enough to conclude that Polanski and multiple reputable outlets report the change occurred at age 18 and that it was intended to restore a familial Jewish name, and one outlet explicitly says the change was by deed poll [2] [5] [3]. However, based solely on the provided materials there is no cited, contemporaneous public record or deed-poll certificate posted or linked that gives a precise calendar date; therefore the available evidence supports the claim about timing in the form of consistent journalistic testimony but does not—within this dataset—constitute a direct public-record confirmation of the exact date [1] [3] [7]. If a reader needs incontrovertible proof of the calendar date, the supplied reporting does not include it and would require consulting primary legal documents or archival enrollment records not present here.