Denial of petition for a name change; Abandoned issue

The court affirmed the trial court’s order denying petitioner’s request “to change his name to ‘william-dennis,’ no last name.” He did “not affirmatively allege any error by the trial court.” Instead, he requested that the court “overrule the lower court and affirm what ‘already is[.]’” By failing to brief the merits of the issue, he abandoned it on appeal. However, the court concluded that even if he had not abandoned his “argument, his proposed reasons for seeking the name-change support the trial court’s determination that the request was sought with fraudulent intent.” The reasons he listed “for the name-change included extinguishing his debt and providing him with an indiscernibly vague, far-reaching expansion of his legal rights. These reasons demonstrate that the trial court’s determination was within the range of reasonable and principled outcomes.”