Expat parents can now legally register their children's surnames according to home-country practices

EXPATS from countries with a patronymic or gendered surname system can now register their children's names in Spain when they are born as they would be able to in their own nation, the national ombudsman has revealed.

The organisation has championed the change, and says civil registries have now all been advised accordingly.

In some eastern and north-eastern European nations, surnames are declined – or 'agree' with the gender of the person; as an example, Russian president Vladimir Putin's wife is called Lyudmila Aleksándrovna Putina.

Also, her first or patronymic surname, Aleksándrovna, comes from her father's first name: He is called Aleksandr, and if she has a brother, his first surname would be Aleksandrov.

Murcia-based lawyer Juan José Ferrer Carratalá says he has handled cases for people from Russia, Belarus and Bulgaria, among other countries, who have 'suffered problems' when trying to register their babies' names.

As a result, a baby called Ivan whose father is also called Ivan and whose family name is Petrov should be named Ivan Ivanovich Petrov, but in Spain he would have had to have been registered, until now, as Ivan Petrov.

In the case of Vladimir Putin's wife, if 'Putin' were her family name rather than marital surname, had she been born in Spain until now, her parents would have been unable to register her as Lyudmila Aleksándrovna Putina – instead, she would be registered as Lyudmila Putin.

When the children travel to their native country, on family visits or if, in later life, they go to school or university there or decide to relocate to their parents' home nation altogether, they can face major problems – legal and social, including stigma – if their surname is not correct.

This is particularly the case with girls, where they are unable to take a feminised version of their father's surname, as they will effectively have a boy's name.

A similar situation could arise with Icelandic parents – the patronymic system used to be used all over Scandinavia until past the Middle Ages and still applies in the northern island nation: Children's surnames are formed of their father's first name, an 's' to denote the possessive, and 'son' or 'daughter'.

A boy born to a man named Olaf would have the surname Olafsson, and his sister would be Olafsdóttir.

Precedent set and rules updated

Now, this has all changed, partly due to a case of new parents in Parla, Madrid, which has set a precedent.

The father is Spanish and the mother is from Belarus, and their first child was born in 2017.

In their case, however, as is increasingly common in Spain, too, they decided the mother's surname would apply.

They found they had no difficulties in registering their son with a masculine form of his mum's family name – for example, if the mother's surname was Petrova, their son's was able to be recorded as Petrov, without issue.

The problem came when, in 2020, they had their second child, a little girl – the civil registry declined permission for her to have a feminised version of the surname, as brother and sister would have been, for example, Petrov and Petrova, and full siblings with the same parents are required by law to have the same surname.

In Belarus, Petrov and Petrova are, indeed, the same surname – just as, in the Spanish language, an adjective, for example, means exactly the same in feminine or masculine and changes according to the gender of the noun (coche rojo for red car or casa roja for red house).

When they did not get anywhere with the civil registry, the couple complained to the Defensor del Pueblo, or 'People's Ombudsman', detailing the problems their daughter could have if she went to Belarus – even just on holiday to see her grandparents.

“The parents pointed out especially about the demeaning treatment this situation could give rise to, as well as all types of confusion and necessary rectification for any activity,” says the ombudsman.

These cases were also proving to be a postcode lottery: Friends and acquaintances of theirs in the same situation related different experiences, although most said they had not had any trouble registering sons and daughters with gendered surnames.

The ombudsman explains that Article 200 of the Civil Registry Regulation states that 'surnames of foreign origin' can be registered in the correct gender for the first child, but that 'in the interests of the child', any brothers or sisters they have must bear the exact same surname, irrespective of whether it is in the feminine or the masculine.

“But we consider that imposing a male surname on a female, or vice versa, is incompatible with the principle of 'the child's interests',” the ombudsman states. 

“It could mean that, in their native country, they suffered humiliation and being made fun of.”

Juan José Ferrer Carratalá also highlights bureaucratic issues.

“If the person, as a child or an adult, were to return to live, work or study in their parents' country of origin, they would need to attend the civil registry on arrival to legally change their surname,” he says.

Now, as a result, the General Directorate of Law and Legal Security, part of the Civil Registry, has issued a circular to all branches in the country.

In it, the board admits that until now, it was established that 'the principle of homopatronymic [identical surnames where these are patronymic in origin] naming between siblings of the same parents must always prevail', meaning the first child's surname would be the same for all subsequent babies, whatever their gender.

'Following numerous controversies and at the request of the national ombudsman', the text reads, 'the appropriate adaptation of the variant that corresponds in each case, according to the sex of the child, may be authorised going forward'.

The circular reasons that this does not represent 'a different surname', but 'merely a minor modification' to the same surname.

Other surname issues of foreign origin still need attention

Administration, rather than specifically legal, problems are still arising through the atchasbá, or adaptation of the person's father's first name as a first surname.

A Bulgarian woman who spoke to the media and gave a pseudonym of Diana Ivanova Todorova – as her dad's first name is Ivan and the family surname is Todorov – said when she applied for Spanish citizenship, her first name was recorded as Diana Ivanova, and her surname as Todorova Petrova.

The 'Petrova' is her mum's married name, that of her second husband, not her mother's birth name – in Spain women do not change their surnames when they marry, so any children they have in common carry both.

When trying to explain to the registry how her surname should be written – including, if necessary, her mother's birth surname – she was told the only way she could do this would be by cancelling her application and waiting for another appointment, which she did not want to risk.

She went ahead, but now has a different name in Spain to in Bulgaria.

“I've inherited some assets from my parents, but as my names and surnames are different in each country, I have to somehow prove I'm the same person to be able to access them,” she says.

“Also, I took my degree in Bulgaria and had it officially recognised in Spain, but now I'm a Spanish national it's no longer valid as the name on it is different from the one I've got now.

“Plus, when I retire, I want to live out my retirement in Bulgaria – but I've got State pension contributions in both countries, which means I might have to deal with more red tape to prove I'm the same person, albeit with different names, so I can access both pots.”