Is a court order required to change a child's name, or can it be done through a government application alone?

It depends on whether everyone who needs to consent actually agrees. Where all parents, or others with decision-making responsibility or parenting time, consent, a child's name can generally be changed through a straightforward application to the Office of the Registrar General under the Change of Name Act, without going to court at all. A court order becomes necessary only where that consent is missing — because a parent objects, can't be located, or is unreasonably withholding consent — in which case the parent seeking the change needs a court to either dispense with the missing consent or decide the issue as part of a parenting proceeding.

So the government application route and the court route aren't alternative paths for the same situation; the government application is only available when there's no real dispute, and a court order is what unlocks the process once there is one. Parents who anticipate any disagreement about a proposed name change should expect to need legal advice and a court process from the outset.