In Re Name Change of JENNA A.J.

I dissent both from the Court’s judgment in this ease and from most of the majority’s reasoning. The decision of the circuit court was well within its discretion and I see no principled basis on which to overturn it; this Court has, in effect, re-weighed the evidence, utilizing certain hard-and-fast rules, tests and presumptions we have previously mandated in our seminal name change eases, In re Harris, 160 W.Va. 422, 236 S.E.2d 426 (1977), and Lufft v. Lufft, 188 W.Va. 339, 424 S.E.2d 266 (1992).1 In my view, with respect to those cases, this Court’s opinion in Hams has long since outlived…