HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania court this week will consider a legal challenge by three transgender women to a two-decade-old state law that prohibits people who have committed serious felonies from ever changing their names.

Commonwealth Court will hear oral arguments Thursday in the lawsuit brought by plaintiffs who live as women but are unable to change their masculine first names because of a 1998 state law designed to prevent fraud.

Pennsylvania law requires anyone convicted of a felony to wait at least two years after completion of their sentence to apply for a name change, and those convicted of certain more serious felonies are permanently barred from changing their names.

People have a fundamental right to control their own names, and that can’t be overridden by a legal presumption that felons are engaging in fraud when they seek a name change, the women’s lawyers wrote in a court filing in May. Those who may not change their names are forced “to speak and write an undesired name in order to travel, vote, pay taxes or simply conduct their daily lives,” they argued.

“The Pennsylvania Constitution does not allow for a system under which a person has no opportunity to show that they are seeking a name change for a nonfraudulent purpose,” such as to reflect a gender transition, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said.

The state attorney general’s office, which represents the defendants in the case, said the law was meant to enhance public safety and welfare and argued there is no fundamental right to a name change in the state constitution.