But apparently he doesn't have Swiss nationality and the Swiss will almost certainly follow whatever name he legally possesses in the USA, i.e. whatever the State Department puts on his passport.
Here's how you change a child's name in Texas: http://texaslawhelp.org/resource/chi...ions-english-s
In France it is definitely not allowed- and you can't believe the difficulties it can cause in case of someone's demise, as I found out, tragically, recently.
Edit- sorry posts crossed 5thSwiss, thanks. So it seems it is possible, but only if you can make a good case for the necessity to do this- not on a whim.
When I was studying civil status (my thesis advisor was in charge of notarial studies at the law faculty where I was) this law was still developing. Transsexuals' rights had attracted judicial decisions, one of which I linked to earlier. (And anyway the influx from ex-colonies and the end of the category of " Français musulman " with distinct civil status and rights was bound to end the rule of only accepting saints' names.)
But as for Switzerland: I do recall that when my grandfather died it took a good deal of arguing with the cemetery authorities before they allowed his stage name to be added to his legal name on his tombstone -- and then only following a hyphen. And as I wrote earlier, my mother had one first name on her Swiss documents and an anglicized one on her US documents. The Swiss consulate general in New York was used to that.
I forgot to reply to the OP.... Opps.
As was said, it is much easier to change names in Texas. But normally you have to do it in the place where you are legal resident. I did legally change my name in the US but have not yet presented it to the Swiss authorities. So I actually don't know if they will accept it.
In Switzerland you have to have a good reason to change your name and changing a child's name can get complicated. Are both parents in agreement to change the child's name? Do you want to change the first or last name?
As always, Google is your friend. (Although in general I prefer duckduckgo because they keep the NSA at arm's length.)
Just read your link- it seems to apply to changing 'prénom' = Christian or first name, only, and only for genuine reasons (like a ridiculous combination of first and last name).
On the same tombstone, my wife's grandmother also has an alternative (and different from FIL) spelling of her surname compared to the legal spelling.
Anyway, the only time you can easily change your name here is when you marry.
Tom
What are you amazed by? ETA: I think you are replying to 5thSwiss and not me.
Here is CH, and in France, the most important document is the Livret de Famille.
It is still not clear from OP if she wants to change the childs first or last name.
If you were replying to 5th, then maybe. But his link talks about changing a first name in France. You are talking about changing a surname.
I'm glad though that in the end it all worked out.
Many years ago an American friend of mine in Abidjan complained that the Ivoirians would not allow him to marry his Cameroonian girlfriend because she had no papers. She did have some kind of a travel document but not a passport and whatever she had did not suffice. I told her to go to Liberia and marry there. In Liberia you could marry anyone. He did, and as far as I know, decades later, they are still married and living in Ohio.
I posted the other day the story of Jean Monnet and how, with American(!) help and Stalin's cooperation he sent his bride Francisco Giannini to Moscow where she was quickly naturalized and then divorced, and move to New York where (unlike Italy) she was able to get custody of her daughter.
I am aware of Swiss (and other countries') pickiness with respect to facts of civil status. Two of my children who are not already Swiss applied for facilitated naturalization and because we have lived in several countries it's been a document chase. And the relevant Swiss consuls need to send each document to their embassy in the country of issuance for translation and legalization. (There's another reason: the embassy will be familiar with fakery of that country's documents.)
Tom
Now it's listed as costing between CHF75 and CHF455. That's an improvement!
Yes. Unless they are married or probably adopted. I don't think the 14 yr old is married. He may be adopted. I think we need more info from the OP.
Without knowing just how far the Swiss-EU treaties make it relevant I did cite Garcia Avello for the principle that countries do not have total freedom in regulating the names given to non-citizens and to migrants, and arguably to dual nationals. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/...2J0148:EN:HTML
The ECHR decision on transsexuals is directly applicable to Switzerland. There are other obvious possibilities of fraud, mistake and adoption. But all the online guidance offered by Swiss authorities suggests that there would have to be a good reason: whether a cross-border conflict satisfies that, given how easy it is to change one's name in a Common-law (Anglo-American law) country, I can't say. Imagine for example a child born in Switzerland of American parents, moving to America, changing his name and years later returning to Switzerland. In principle the Swiss birth certificate is nothing more than a record, satisfying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- which also gives him the right to have a name.
The Consular Report of Birth Abroad of a Citizen of the United States can be amended: http://travel.state.gov/passport/get...first_825.html For internal US purposes, that is the "birth certificate". I would not have been able to deduce the Swiss rule on the question I posed above, but happily I don't have to guess, here's the rule from the Federal law on private international law (291 LDIP):
Art. 37
IV. Name
1. Grundsatz
1 Der Name einer Person mit Wohnsitz in der Schweiz untersteht schweizerischem Recht; der Name einer Person mit Wohnsitz im Ausland untersteht dem Recht, auf welches das Kollisionsrecht des Wohnsitzstaates verweist.
2 Eine Person kann jedoch verlangen, dass ihr Name dem Heimatrecht untersteht.
IV. Nom
1. En général
1 Le nom d'une personne domiciliée en Suisse est régi par le droit suisse, celui d'une personne domiciliée à l'étranger par le droit que désignent les règles de droit international privé de l'Etat dans lequel cette personne est domiciliée.
2 Toutefois, une personne peut demander que son nom soit régi par son droit national.