This is a post for a friend of mine here that has a bit of predicament. He is a Kiwi and he is engaged to a Swiss woman. She is a very strong family woman and wants to keep her last name. He has no problem with this what so ever, but they inquired about children and were told that they would have to choose a single family name and could not hyphenate last names. They decided to choose the family name in a coin flip and he lost. Now I think he is a bit down about his eventual kids not having his surname at all. Is there a way around this? Why is this even an issue? I would love to give him sme advice, but I have my one and only kid and I plan to have no more, so I know nothing of the matter.
She should give birth in another country if they want to avoid Swiss laws.
No idea if it helps but i will tell you my thinking on the same subject. When i will get married, i will hyphenate my last name. If changing of passports and other official papers proves to be too much pain in the a**, i will just keep my own surname. When we have kids, they will get their dads surname irrespective of what my surname will be
I actually like the idea that really horrible names for kids can be denied......as a teacher I have seen and had some terrible names in my classes. I think really bad names can be akin to child abuse because the child has no say. This is simply hyphenating two normal last names....why is it a problem? What is the logic?
too complicated? When said kid wants to get married and has double hyphenated names? Not really sure, but there are rules. When we got married in Germany we were told that since I am American I could choose my surname, otherwise there were specific rules as to what was available. It wasn't a big deal, as I just took my husband's name. I think it is just easier, no ambiguity, etc. Plus, it's kind of fun getting a new name
Change your family name by depol. Say the version with the hyphen isn't a double-barrel name but your regular name. If they won't let you have it then spell it without the hyphen.
Our situation was a little different but I guess could be of help, we had our 3rd child here and we were not married
The Swiss didnt like that and the birth certificate came back with my surname even though we had requested his (the same as our other children) Apparently this is normal if the mother is not married.
To cut a very long story short we had to go to the Brittish consulote to get a letter to say it is acceptable in the uk for children of unmarried parents to take the farthers name, we then had to go to Canton Zurich offices and get it officially changed.
Will they be married in Switzerland and before the baby arrives? if so will they hyphen the name then, and not have that problem?
If not maybe they could go through the NZ consulate to get a letter that its perfectly accepted there and as the child would be half NZ??
But in my opinion I think he would regret it if the children dont share his surname.
Btw I havent changed my married name and i got the third degree from
passport control whilst taking my kids back to the uk, I had to have a letter of proof that they were mine apparently, and that made me really upset.
In most Spanish speaking countries the child receives both last names, and in some countries you can even decide if the mother's last name should go before the father's.
Back to the topic, your friend's children are not less his children if they don't carry his last name. I would consider other possibilities if faced with the same decision, for instance which name is easier to spell in the country they plan to live.
Your friend can for sure give any children his surname as a middle name instead. There won't be a hyphen and the name will not be part of the official surname, but the kid will at least have both names on the birth certificate and the guy's family name won't be lost iykwim.
This is exactly what I was thinking.
I think they are both proud of their cultures and last names and want to honor the kids with both. Could he get a letter from NZ stating that it is acceptable for NZ children to carry both names? Would the CH government be okay with that?
Unfortunately if a child is born to a Swiss parent, on the Swiss paperwork the kid is subject to Swiss naming conventions regardless of which parent is Swiss and of course the mood of the government employee processing the birth certificate. I'm not entirely sure that the "family" name has anything to do with what a baby finally gets named. In my case, my US passport says "maiden name-married name", my "family name" in Switzerland is "married name-maiden name" and any kids would be "married name" only. It is nice that zurich99's petition was accepted but it is not always the case in all the cantons. There was a case of an unmarried couple in Geneva where the French passport had the dad's name and the Swiss one had the mom's. The mom took it to court to have all passports say the dad's name and the court said no go. Normally, if the couple are married, they will have the dad's name. If not, the mom's name. So maybe it will be a non issue if they have kids after getting married.
Not possible in CH, unlike in the UK & USA.
Are you sure?
Example (unmarried couple): Kid's first name is Franz, father's surname is Müller, mother's surname is Meier. Can the parents really call their son Franz (first name) Meier (middle name) Müller (surname) or Franz (first name) Müller (middle name) Meier (surname)?
This doesn't seem feasible, since Müller/Meier aren't "Vorname"s in the sense of the Swiss term and I don't know of cases where you can choose anything other than "Vorname"s as a middle or first name for a child born to a Swiss parent.
OK, you might have a problem with a regular German/Swiss sounding surname, but I'm assuming that the Kiwi guy doesn't have a German surname - if he has a fairly regular anglo-type surname then I think it's feasible to put it as a middle name e.g. if your surname is Jones or Johnson or Smith or Dobson or Harris I can't imagine the Swiss authorities complaining that it shouldn't be a middle name - a lot of people are using surnames as first names in the UK now anyway (I know people with first and last names of Cameron, Harrison and Ryley for example.)
A friend of mine did this with her child (born in CH, parents non Swiss) - she took her husbands name on getting married in the UK, then moved here and kids were born here. Because she was the "last in line" in her family and they were all girls, the family name was going to die out - so she gave her maiden name as a middle name - it was a properly Russian surname and there was no problem with it.
His name is not Anglo Saxon sounding unfortunately. What about having a child in New Zealand where the birth certificate could officially have fathername-mothername and then coming back to CH? How would that affect the child's Swiss citizenship?
When said kid wants to get married with double hyphenated names, that will be a discussion for his or her partner to have. It will have nothing to do with the parents.
And what do you mean by 'no ambiguity'? Does it make you more of a family or team to all have the same last name? I grew up in a family where everyone had the same name and let me tell you, the cohesion was minimal, at best. Add to the fact that in Québec (where my dad is from), women are not allowed legally to change their names it caused confusion when requesting documents from government services or doing our family tree.
And I don't mean to pick on you, but I take umbrage at the 'fun!' of a new name. Have you SEEN the paperwork involved in this sh!tshow, at least here in Canada? Maybe it's an American thing but the idea of changing me -the person who has degrees and recogition and whatnot under my current name to having to explain to everyone why it's now different (and in 50% of cases, why I would have to change it back), sounds like a huge pain in the rear.
On topic? My kid has a hyphenated last name and it was no problem with the Swiss authorities (but he was born here in Canada). Definitely confer with the embassy - mine was a huge help!
I got re-married last year (me, a widower, wife a divorcee).
The naming thing came up, but as we planned on no kids, no problem (we both have adult kids).
Anyway, even if you do go the hyphen route, the kids only get the first (pre-hyphen) name once they marry.
BUT, if you DON'T marry, they can use a hyphenated name, as my daughter's best friend does!
They drop the part after the hyphen.
Meanwhile, a friend's (Swiss) sister married a German in Germany, and they took her name. Of course, when they returned to CH, this wasn't accepted (until several years later), so for a while he had her surname, and she, his!
My daughter's best friend has a hyphenated last name (legally, it's on her ID card), as her parents (both Swiss) aren't married, so hers is a hyphenated concatenation of both!
Tom
My son (English, life-long CH resident) married a swiss girl two years ago, the option of her hyphenating their names was apparently no longer an option as the swiss authorities got fed-up with complicated versions of names cropping up.
Who's name is first, which one, or mix to use for the children, etc. Apparently it wasn't uncommon for each child to be given a different variation of the family surname!
In their case she chose to take his name and had to declare as part of the marriage ceremony that this was her choice and that she hadn't been 'forced' into changing her name.
If she had kept her own surname then they could have used it for their children, but once they'd decided which surname to use they have to stick to that one for all their children.
If your friend feels so strongly about his family name being lost he was really rather stupid to have entrusted the lose of it to a coin toss!
You know, I was thinking the exact same thing. I got married in January and after three meetings with the people from the Zivilstandesamt, they finally accepted our changes. I am now (My name+My mom's surname+ My dad's surname+Hubby's surname), and my husband is (His name+His family's surname+My mom's surname+My dad's surname). At first he wanted to take only one, but the Swiss authorities said it wasn't possible, he had to take both as he is Swiss and this is what officially counts as my last name.
When we mentioned the children we might have, we were informed that the kids would only have my original last names because they were now our official family name. Because I think it really sucks for the future kid(s?)not to have his last name (I come from Brazil, so forgive me if we love huge names), my automatic reaction was to say "Ha! They will be born in Brazil, then and I can name them whatever we want", to which the woman replied saying they would only be accepted in Switzerland if one of us happened to be an official resident of Brazil at the time, not simply if we went there for this child to be born. :P
Hopefully by the time we decide to have kids the situation is different, who knows?