First name of dad becomes surname for the kid... Do you know this?

Recently I had complication to get the right surname in the birth certificate for my son in Lueneburg, Germany. Normally in South Indian culture, the first name of the father becomes the surname for the son. For e.g. my first name is Sathish and my son gets the surname as Sathish. This concept of naming seems to be totally new and weird for Germans in the Standesamt (Birth Certificate office). Because in Germany, the kid gets the surname of either mom or dad. So in our case, my surname is Shanmugam and Anita’s surname is Muruganandam. So my son will get the surname as either Shanmugam or Muruganandam.

In the first instinct, I was kind of ok with this rule and sort of proceeded to have Shanmugam as surname for my son. But my wife was very adamant that it’s quite unusual to have grand father’s name(Shanmugam) as surname for our son. I can totally understand her position and wish. So I thought I should fight it out with the local authorities to get Sathish as the surname. I took the example of my other Indian friends in South Germany who had the similar situation and they didn’t have similar problem with their local authorities to have father’s first name as surname for their kids. I scanned those birth certificates with the similar situation and went to the concerning officials in Lueneburg.

I had to argue with them if other Standesamt (Birth Certificate office) in Germany can give father’s first name as surname for Indian kids, why not Lueneburg. The lady was arguing that according to the rule of names in Germany for Indian kids, it’s not possible to give that way and I can only go by the phrase in the rule book of names for Indians. What was surprising for me was she said, Indians don’t have the concept of first name and family name and we just have names written together. I was shocked to the core with her statement. If that’s the case, why in Indian passport we have first name and surname. She reiterated that only because of internalization and global mobilization, Indians have agreed to the naming conventions according to western rule.

I said, I can even get a letter from Indian Embassy in Hamburg stating that it’s acceptable to have first name of father as surname for the kid. The lady was so adamant that she will go only by text books and she can not change her mind. I can agree to the lady if my son is given German passport and nationality, then it makes sense to abide by the rules of German naming convention. If the kid is Indian, I thought why I should be submissive with my approach to her. I said, I will go to press if she carried with this approach. If other offices in Germany can give such birth certificates with out any fuss then why not Lueneburg. She got frightened after I said I will go to press.

She gave me a work around to get Sathish as surname for my son. Since the kid is born in Germany, the kid can be named according to German naming convention but the parents won’t be given any surnames. It’s the birth certificate of my son, what’s important is the first name and surname of my son and it totally doesn’t matter if the dad’s and mom’s name is written as one full name or split in to surname and first name. So I finally agreed with this solution after discussing and arguing for nearly two and half hours.

The kids can also get international birth certificate in Germany. I requested is it at least possible to get surname and first name correctly for the parents. She argued international birth certificate is an exact copy of German birth certificate and she can only issue as it is in German birth certificate (Geburtsurkunde). I asked her to show the rule where it’s stated that International birth certificate is an exact copy of German birth certificate. She said she will get back to me in few weeks finding this rule ;)

I made great experiences with different sections of people in Germany but not definitely with the government office people. They have a different attitude towards foreigners. Had it been before some years, I should have just accepted what she said. But this time I thought I should fight it out to practice my German and pass time with bureaucratic snobs ;) I felt it as a total waste of time just for the shit paper works. There are so many issues and problems to concentrate in life but sometimes people in government offices are bogged down with petty things.

Conclusion: My son's first name: Anish (Anita + Sathish) Kumar
surname : Sathish

Isn’t it a nice feeling in the future when somebody calls my son Herr. Sathish (Mr. Sathish) and not Herr. Shanmugam (Mr. Shanmugam).

Cheers,
Sathish Kumar S