Please help

How do i change my name without creating another account?

In a nutshell, you cannot change your name, although LL will change it if it does not conform to the CS/TOS or breaches LL's trademarks.

HTH

You can't, sorry. That's just the way SL is setup.


Can I change my avatar's name?

Your Second Life avatar and account name is your account, for all intents and purposes. Your avatar's appearance, inventory, friends, L$ balance, etc. are all tied to the name you've chosen. As a result, while you may create additional Second Life accounts, Linden Lab is unable to rename an existing account.

You may pay for a "Vanity Name" but that is about $50.00 USD setup

Custom Vanity Name
At this time, Vanity Names are available at Linden Lab's discretion, generally for events that involve major press or tv coverage, or that in our estimation provide significant publicity value, such as nationwide TV coverage. Upon creation of an approved Vanity Name, the designated owner will be billed a $50 setup fee plus the first annual $50 fee. On each anniversary date, the owner is billed $50 to retain Vanity Name account ownership.

Vanity Name requests must reflect Real Life names. Please no requests for Santa Claus, President Lincoln etc. In some cases, a Vanity Name may already exist and we will not be able to create it for you. Approved Non-profit and Educational requests will receive a 30% discount on these fees.

If it is only $50 US that is a huge reduction on the cost they use to charge, I am sure it was more like $500 US?

Edit: on second thoughts maybe the $500 US is for the sole usage of a new Surname?

Yes, the $500.00 goes like this:

Custom Surname
Upon creation of a Custom Surname, the account designated as owner is billed a $500 Setup fee plus the first annual $500 fee. On each anniversary date, the owner is billed $500 to retain Custom Surname ownership. Last names must clearly be an organizational or corporate name, and distinguished from personal last names. For example, Smith is not acceptable, but SmithCorp, SmithInc, SmithProducts or SmithConstruction are. Names that are clearly composite or made up (SecondLife, Agilent) will be considered.

Please note that to create additional accounts, the Custom Surname owner must apply for and use the Registration API. For more information about the Registration API, see http://secondlifegrid.net/programs/api/reg. You may create as many additional accounts as you need (the initial limit is 500 per day, but you may request a higher limit).
At this time we do not provide bulk account registration for your Custom Surname; you must use the RegAPI.
You may want to review the Registration API documentation before you submit a Custom Surname request to be sure that you have the capabilities to use it to create additional accounts.
The Custom Surname owner to be billed must be the same account that applies for the RegAPI.
Approved Non-profit and Educational requests will receive a 30% discount on these fees.