Excerpt from: The Exmormon's Guide to the Galaxy

by John Grimshaw

(Raw excerpt first draft. I know there are mistakes.)

Whether or not to have your name removed:

​This is a touchy situation. Often with deep feelings of resentment, an Exmormon considers if they should have their name removed. This text simply provides information about the process and will allow the reader to make their own decision.
(Research if needed)
BYU students beware. Can lose ecclesiastical endorsement.
The church record office keeps track of all member records. They are linked with your family. Within recent times these records are all digital, and a request is processed quickly.
A fair warning, this can cause quite the chain of events. When the church gets your request they forward your request to your stake president and bishop. If they don’t have a current address for your membership, they may also contact the stake president and bishop of your parents or near relatives. Bishops and Stake presidents are then strongly advised to request meeting with you. Your name is not removed until they process your request, unless you explicitly say in your request that you are not to be contacted. (at the end of this chapter will include a sample letter as well as information for contacting the church).
I recommend that people be completely open with their family members before having their name removed. In order to maintain healthy relationships with family members, the dialog needs to be open.
If you do decided to meet with your bishop and stake president the interview may go as good or bad as the leader themselves makes it. Some leaders are open and may have concerns themselves. Talking through your concerns about the church may help alleviate some of the pressures you will have to face. If they are a good Christ-like servant they profess to be, your friendship may continue on as good neighbors and friends outside of the church.
 
Things to remember:
In the minds of Mormons, when you have your name removed, you are more or less revoking your own baptism. This puts you at best in the Terrestrial Kingdom (the middle one), which is squarely in a different region than most of your Mormon family. Some radicals say that you are denying the truth and qualify for outer darkness. This is unlikely, even if you were a Bishop or Stake President although some uneducated Mormons might think this of you. So just think about this.
If your parents are hard-core believers, they will think you are lost for eternity, which can be hard for some Mormon mom’s to deal with. So by leaving your name on the records you are considered “inactive” which is a much easier pill to swallow.
If you are married - by redacting your membership, you are also effectively cancelling your temple marriage because you are losing the priesthood. The only way to get this back would be to be rebaptized, get the aaron AND then the melchezedik priesthood again. Go through the temple again and get sealed again. Quite the process and unlikely to happen. Sometimes its best to just let them keep the hope alive. But if you truly deconvert, for many, the fact that the church still thinks they’ll come back is enough to push the eject button all the way. Others are still sealed to you. Parents and such. Handbook 1. Section 3.6.1, Effects of Excommunication or Name Removal. After a husband and wife have been sealed in a temple, if one of them is excommunicated or has his or her name removed from Church membership records, his or her temple blessings are revoked. However, the sealing blessings of the innocent spouse and of children born in the covenant are not affected. Children who are born to a couple after one or the other has been excommunicated or had his or her name removed are not born in the covenant. Section 3.6.2, Status of children when a sealing is cancelled or revoked: Children who are born in the covenant or sealed to parents remain so even if the sealing of the parents is later (1) canceled or (2) revoked by the excommunication or name removal of either parent.