All,

I got my German citizenship today. I have been living with 2 following chalennges which did not bother me as much as it is bothering me now.

1. As a south Indian, I never had to include my Surname / Family name. Thus all my certificates have no Surname. However when I got my Indian passport while I was in India, some how my father's name was added as my surname in my Indian passport. 

2. I have a name with which all friends and family call me which is different from my first name and hence not recorded anywhere. It is used by only by the close friends and family members.

The above problem gave raise to two more challenges.

1. In Germany for the last 10+ years, I am being called by several names (Some office colleagues call me with my father's name as they think thats my surname/family name, others call me with my first name whcih otherwise no one calls me with that name, some people cut short my Indian first name and call me some thing)

2. In the Deutsche einbürgerungsurkunde, they striked out my first name, family name etc blank and combined my name and father's name as ''eigenename'' (Given name). 

When my kid was born couple of years ago in Germany, I included our real family name / sur name in her Indian passport to ensure that kids dont have these issues.

Hence all of us at home ended up with different sur name / family name. Hence einbürgerungsurkunde shows them all as eigenename. 

The German authorities who issued me the einbürgerungsurkunde suggested me to go to standesamt and get the sur name / family name sorted out before applying for German passport / German Identity card.

Now the question is following.

1. Can I include my actual Sur name / Family name which does not reflect else where (note all my school, uni certificats have no sur name or family name and my Indian passport, Bank account etc has my fathers name as my sur name )?

2, If yes, can I correct my first name, middle name, family name which is wrongly interpritted everywher with the following format?

Proposed First name: What I am being called by my parents and friends which does not appear in any document so far
Proposed middle name: What currently being used as my first name in my Indian passport which people dont call me with
Family name: Replace family name with correct family name as opposed to a family name in my Indian passport which is my father's name

If such complex changes are made, what is the impact back in India, Germany and other visiting countries like UK or US?

Quick reply will help.

Thanks
B

All,

Please read above to get an impression on my case.

Yesterday I had an appointment with Standesampt to address this issue. Although I was awarded German citizenship, I still have not applied for German identification card or passport and have obtained a temporary identification card due to the fact that the authorities have wrongly written my name, family name and so on (reasons explained in the earlier thread). This requires correction in both first name and family name.

I only got an appointment from Standesamt with a waiting period of 2 months. After two months wait, I went and met up with them. Yesterday I learnt that through Standesamt that I can only do this through ''Name change'' process and that too the process is governed by German law. 

For changing the first name (to get my name written the way it is supposed to be), it seems there are only few choise as per the German law. This means, I can never get my original name back written in a way it is supposed to be written.

For family name, we south Indians do not have any records (like birth certificate, marriage certificates and so on) and hence German authorities have issued my father's first name as my family name (which was as per my Indian passport). Hence I would like to add an appropriate family name to resolve this on long run. I succesfully added a family name for my kid when she was born in the records. Now that my wife and I would like to add the family name, we are looking forward to some help and suggestion from the forum.

Thanks
Balu

Dear Balu,

i have recently got the German citizenship and had the same problem created by some ignorant clerk in indian passport office in india around 20 years back for which i have suffered around last 15 years .....my fathers full name was added to to my firstname even though Indian passport have a separate field for father's name on the back , anyway.

after i got my Einbürgerungsurkunde i went directly to Standesamt to apply for change of name under Art. 47 EGBGB , so that i can keep my firstname as i wanted and remove the rest, i did submit copy of indian passport and birth certificate, (it is always usefull to keep atleast one copy of your indian passport before giving it up for German citizenship) . Friendly lady from Standesamt took all papers and asked me to wait for 1 day until she clears all about changing name, 2nd day she did called me to come by and sign some documents, when i was there she informed me that it is possible to change the name exactly as i wanted and indian names are actually easy to be changed because of some indian consititution etc etc and i could even change my Family name completely if i want to, she even gave me a paper which she copied extra for me just for my knowledge under which rights i have changed my name.

keeping it short, you do have the right to change the name best chance was before applying for german pass and id but since you have already done so you may still change it but might cost you more probably , well i paid 35 Euros for all changes and got a "Bescheinigung" for change of name same time which states my unchanged name and new name, which that "Bescheinigung" i went to apply for new passport and ID and thats it....

PS: My name on Einbürgerungsurkunde will never change but i will get a letter from Rathaus stating and confirming my change of name in their records, actually i dont need to change also on Einbürgerungsurkunde because i can alwasy show this "Bescheinigung" whenever needed.

hope this helps ...

Regards,
N

Hi Navaz,

Thanks for sharing details.

Can you please drop a note to my yahoo id with your contacts. I would like to get more inputs from you. My id is vebalu@yahoo.com

thanks
Balu

Hi balu

sorry for late answer, actually there is nothing much to give more input, as and what i did i explained already, so best thing you can do is contact the Standesamt and ask for possibilities, as they might sure know what to do better than me.

Regards
N

@ Nawaz / Balu:

Excellent discussion.

Any experience on effects of name change plus taking up German citizenship on properties/plots owned back in India? 
Is there any bureaucracy involved and/or any changes needed in such circumstances to property documents?
Thanks!

Yeah, a very interesting thread indeed.

Adding to questions from enfield regarding the properties back home, I would like to know if the name change has an impact on the OCI process? Is it straight forward getting an OCI card with the new name despite having had a different name on the Indian passport? what documents would the Indian embassy need for it?

@Nawas80, I would deeply appreciate your response for this question.

I am asking this out of curiosity..

It is true that many south indians dont have a family name.. (even for me)
under this situation, how come we create a new family name?..

@balu can you tell me how found a new family name for your daughter...