Hi,

By this time I guess the whole planet will know that I am going to apply for renewal of passport

My passport expiration date is approaching and I wish to obtain new passport. The more I think about it, more questions I have:
- On my passport Given name is: Tony Gill
- Surname is blank (nothing written there)
- I use Gill as my Nachname in Germany and till now I never faced a problem.

I wish to apply for Citizenship later with the same passport. Is it necessary to have Surname on passport when I apply for it? If yes, how can I get it changed on my new passport? The Indian embassy mentions name change due to marriage and surname addition but not segregation of given name to given and surname. Will I have to follow procedure of name change by newspaper advertisement or I simply send my application a name change request too?

One more question Is it a must to have wife name entered on passport.

I am purely speculating here:

The first questions that comes to my mind are, do you have a real surname? Where is the real issue coming from - did u not give the surname for Indian passport, or the Indian issuers made a mistake?

Now you have the following options:
- If you indeed don't have a surname, change name for real and get it changed in the Indian passport
- If you do have a real surname and that is gill, you have to petition that there is a mistake.
- If you never had a problem either in Germany regarding the empty surname, let the status-quo continue. Easiest for now, but you may get into trouble eventually.

GILL is my family name. Like Amithabh Bacchan, Bacchan is family name.

Its not only my passport but passport of my parents, wife, cousins and many of my friends have same pattern of names written on passports.

The authorities simply combine first and last name together and write them in column "Given name" on passport and leave "Surname" column blank.

I read it on Wikipedia. Surname is more of a concept in south India. In North we just have a family name. So in North India mostly this column is blank. Na ja, for Germany it is egal, they consider Surname as Nachname which is GILL in my case.

In the US 3 of my friends faced problem due to this and before they travelled to the US one got her passport changed and other 2 got visa but FNU as family name (Family name unknown). We too had problem as on my child's DOB I and my wife are without Nachname. Otherwise it was never a problem and I want to know if there can be problem in Citizenship antrag.

Ok. Finally I could able to contact a very freindly counslar in Indian Embassy (Munich).

Just for info to those who have the same problem as of mine, you can get it changed without giving application for name change and is free of charge. Of course you got to pay for passport renewal / fresh passport.

Hi, I also have this same issue.

my full name is printed under the given name and the surname field is left blank. I wanted to apply for German national student visa. What should i specify under the family name in the german visa application, say my name is a b c and c is the surname..?? Any help is much appreciated

Hi,
Just think what will you choose as surname when you apply for passport again. If your name is say "sudhir Kumar rana" then rana should be your surname. I dont think you are either in mood of deciding or ou can actually decide what your surname is.its family name or last name or in some regions in India your caste.

Tony