Birth Certificate Question

B

BabyG

Registered User
Hubby went to the Immigration Dept. yesterday to register our newborn's birth. When he came home, I looked at the certificate and under name: It had my son's first name and middle name only. There was no surname after Daniel Ethan. I called immigration today to double check if there was a mistake or if this was the standard. They said that that is how its done in HK and that the child would automatically take their fathers surname.

If any of you have their birth registration handy, can you please have a look and tell me if under the heading NAME it only has your child's first and/or middle name? If so, do you think that this will pose a problem in the future in other countries?

Thank you so much!
 
Yes, it doesn't state the childs surname on the birth certificate.

Apparently, it's ok for the child to have either surname (or even hyphenated, I think) on foreign documents, using the HK birth certificate - although for us, we did use the father's surname so didn't run into any problems there. Her Australian citizenship and passport are all in her full name with father's surname. I think there's no problems as long as you use either surname or a hyphenated surname, but I don't have experience with anything other than just father's surname...
 
Yes, that's how the birth certificates for my two children are. I'm not sure why you would need to produce a birth certificate in other countries other than to get a passport, but I can say there was no problem at all with getting a Canadian passport using this format of birth certificate. We used their father's surname for their passports. I would think that your passport would be a more important identification document anyway.
 
Thank you ladies! I was starting to freak out for a bit. In my country of birth and even in Hubby's they ask for birth certificates for everything. Baptism, getting married etc. etc.
 
Agree with the above, our birth certificates are like that too. My husband and I have different surnames and have given our kids my surname as a middle name and then my husbands as their surname so our certificates are very confusing for people back home as it looks like their surname is the same as mine! So, you can ask for another certificate to be printed which shows all names including the surname. We used the second certificate to apply for the passport so that it was not confusing as to which surname was correct. You could think about having that second certificate printed as well to show all names.
 
Hi, from where I come we use husband's first name as the child's surname. I can't use my husband's surname for my child as it would be my fil's name.
Do you think it is easy to add my husband's first name as child's surname?
 
Birth Certificates help required

Hi, I am trying to get hold of a copy of my son's birth certificate. He was born In The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kowloon many years ago:smile:2/2/84. My husband was with the British Army and we had a 2 year tour there. The problem i am having is great dificulty getting a copy of his birth certificate. Is there anybody that would be willing to help me please. I will gladly re-imbuse any costs, If you can help I would be very gratful. Please email if you can help to [email protected].
Fingers crossed somebody can... :smile:
 
I am wondering about this too...

gpjapan said:
Hi, from where I come we use husband's first name as the child's surname. I can't use my husband's surname for my child as it would be my fil's name.
Do you think it is easy to add my husband's first name as child's surname?
Click to expand...
 
Catan, you will not be able to use the husband's first name as your child's surname as far as I understand. My husband had huge arguments with the birth registry on this very point as it is the tradition in the place he comes from.

First, as Nicole says, the birth certi just shows the child's first name. So the argument they finally used to convince my husband (and which my husband tried on me - I remain unconvinced) is that that is all there is to it and when you apply for a passport you can get whatever name you want.

However, the birth registry issues some sort of sticker for immigration and on that sticker the name issued is child's name + father's last name. So on some record somewhere, the child's name has gone down as that. Which is not the name we want for our child.

By the way, my husband was also told that it is possible for the child to take the mother's last name. So basically, the last name of one of the parents. In which case, how does the 'last name does not matter on birth certificate' argument stand.

The birth certificate is used as a document for some things in our home country. So the name on the birth certificate is important. The birth registry, however, refused to budge.
 
we got it done using the 'alias' wording. it has 2 names in the birth certificate and we got the passport done as per father's name as last name
 
charade-- thanks for replying!

I also argued with the birth registry on this. They also said you can get whatever name you want on the passport. However, as we are applying for HKSAR pp, they follow what's on the HK birth cert.

I was advised to have a deed poll done for her name before applying for her HKID and I did that. No response from immigration dept yet whether or not this worked.

I am curious about the child taking mother's last name-- do you mean for HKID and HKSAR pp?

charade said:
Catan, you will not be able to use the husband's first name as your child's surname as far as I understand. My husband had huge arguments with the birth registry on this very point as it is the tradition in the place he comes from.

First, as Nicole says, the birth certi just shows the child's first name. So the argument they finally used to convince my husband (and which my husband tried on me - I remain unconvinced) is that that is all there is to it and when you apply for a passport you can get whatever name you want.

However, the birth registry issues some sort of sticker for immigration and on that sticker the name issued is child's name + father's last name. So on some record somewhere, the child's name has gone down as that. Which is not the name we want for our child.

By the way, my husband was also told that it is possible for the child to take the mother's last name. So basically, the last name of one of the parents. In which case, how does the 'last name does not matter on birth certificate' argument stand.

The birth certificate is used as a document for some things in our home country. So the name on the birth certificate is important. The birth registry, however, refused to budge.
Click to expand...
 
bump. my wife asked me the same question after I came back from the government office. :D probably useful for new parents. :) saves me a trip to the office to "fix" it.
 
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