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Posted by  JanetK_CA on 4/5/21 5:39pm
Both of your questions are addressed under CA notary law. While I'd agree with what the other's have said (with one exception), it's not relevant, because you're required to follow CA notary law, so the official SOS Handbook should be your very first 'go-to' for any questions.
Having said that, on your first question, I suspect you knew our law says that we may ONLY use the title of "Notary Public" when actually notarizing a document, which is why you were asking, right?  I believe most of us interpret that as not allowing the "Notary Public" title to be used when completing the Patriot Act form. I use "Signing Agent", even though it's not an 'official' title. No one has ever objected, that I can recall. Other people use different titles, but as long as it isn't NP, I don't think it matters, as long as it gets the idea across.
On the second issue, your question isn't very clear, but if you're talking about when completing a notary certificate, our title of "Notary Public", MUST appear after our name in the body of an acknowledgment. It's also allowed to be used under our printed name/signature in any notary certificate. I have a vague recollection that some states require our printed name (and possibly title) to appear under our signature, which may be because some didn't require a stamp. It's a not a CA requirement, but I do it anyway, because of the reasons stated.
Ever since I found some wrong information in their CA handbook, I haven't trusted NNA materials or resources to find any answers. [It happened at a loan office signing back when I was still pretty new, where the sales manager was yelling at me to accept an ID that had expired a year before. He shoved the NNA book in my face, which said it was OK (I forget the exact wording), and I had to call the SOS office to have someone there explain to him why it was wrong.] That's an example of why it's so important for us to know our notary law, so we don't get pressured into doing something wrong.
Fortunately, I had the SOS phone number saved in my cell phone and these days, I still have their website (the Handbook page) bookmarked.
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