Im changing my daughter's last name to my last name. Did anyone change their childs last name through court?

I live in California. And I have a court date set for a petition to change my daughter's name from her %26quot;father's%26quot; to my last name in a couple of weeks. I already filed the petition to change name in the local newspaper. The reason why I am changing her name is because he has been deported to Mexico, and will never be back. He does not exist in her memory, and he also relinquished his parental and financial responsibility to me and my fiance. Is there anything I should know before going into court? As far as is there anything that I need to bring with me in order to prove that he cannot be found. How likely is it that the judge WILL indeed grant me the name change for my daughter? Thank you:)Im changing my daughter's last name to my last name. Did anyone change their childs last name through court?You said “he also relinquished his parental and financial responsibility to me and my fiance” Did this go through the court and did a judge sign off on it/approve it? If not, it’s not legally binding. And I really doubt a judge would sign off on it because of the ‘fiance’ aspect. However, it can be presented/used for the purpose of a stepparent adoption, when fiance actually becomes the stepparent, which means after you marry. Assuming that’s the plan (for him to adopt the child) why are you changing the name now instead of just waiting until that happens, because at that point the name would just be changed again.Im changing my daughter's last name to my last name. Did anyone change their childs last name through court?does she want to change her nameIm changing my daughter's last name to my last name. Did anyone change their childs last name through court?Our daughter's last name changed when she was legally adopted by my husband in a step-parent adoption (her biological dad had given up all parental rights). We kept the original (bio-dad's) last name as a second middle name, so she wouldn't lose that part of her past, and added my husband's name to the end (so she has the same last name as our other kids). We did ask her what she wanted to do, and paid attention to what she wanted.

If the bio-dad has legally given up his parental rights (as in, signed the legal docs), then there shouldn't be an issue. It would be even easier in an adoption - there would be an additional reason to make the change. I agree that it's important to ask the child what she wants.