Cannot Have Farang Name For Newly Born Baby?

[TomBrown]

Hi,

I'm a UK farang with Thai girlfriend (not wife... yet) and we have just had our first baby. We wanted our baby to have a farang first name, but when the my girlfriends mother took my passport and girlfriend's ID etc for registration at the governemt, the mother was told that we could not have a farang first name.

Details;

We want a farang first name with my girlfriends last name, which we will change to my last name once married.

Mother took my passport and other documentation to government in Ban Phaeng in Nakhom Phanom.

Can anyone advise on this situation and how to gain a ferang first name for our newly born baby?

Is this really the case that a baby cannot have a farang name if parents are not married?

Hopefully someone can let me know as obviously time is short we registering a baby birth.

Thanks very much.

Tom.

[buriramboy]

your future mother-in-law is talking crap, i am married and my daughter has a farang christian and family name, no Thai name. My German friend who is not married and also has a daughter, and his daughter has a german first name and family name, again no Thai names, all i can think of is that maybe the mother in law wants you to have a thai and not farang name for the baby.

[buriramboy]

another thing, are you actualy in Thailand now???

as at the hospital, various forms should have been filled in by the doctors and yourself/girlfriend with all the relevant names on and everything should be checked very carefuly as mistakes can be hard to rectify.

BB

[jumnien]

My thai wife was born 36 years ago in Thailand with the first name "Anna" after an actress of the time. My son, luk kreung, is named Ryan.

[Strap]

Tom,

There is no problem at ALL giving your baby a farang name. me and my future wife have a 2 year old son. he is named after me, first and last name no thai name . birth cert shows mothers name,fathers name and baby's name . I am not thai. All you need to do is fill out the birth registration yourself. then you also fill out the form stating you are the baby's father and required to support the baby if your not married .you need to do this not the mother in law..

Good luck.

Strap

PS; Give the kid your name ,last name now not later. much better for the child in case you dont get married , the child will still get a UK / Thai passport.

Edited April 21, 2007 by Strap

[buriramboy]

just spoke to the wife, what the problem maybe is that you have to translate the farang name into Thai (as in spell it in Thai language) as this is the name that goes in the family book etc.

[Nawtilus]

Yes, you do have to do this and try to make sure the spelling is correct so it does not cause problems in the future with different spellings.

As has been posted, no problem married or not with western first and last names at all.

[chanchao]

And to wrap this one up:

NO NEED TO WAIT WITH GIVING THE BABY YOUR OWN LAST NAME, never mind if your married or not.

All that matters is that you're on the birth certificate properly.

Cheers,

Chanchao

[swanks]

Tom,

There is no problem at ALL giving your baby a farang name. me and my future wife have a 2 year old son. he is named after me, first and last name no Thai name . birth cert shows mothers name,fathers name and baby's name . I am not Thai. All you need to do is fill out the birth registration yourself. then you also fill out the form stating you are the baby's father and required to support the baby if your not married .you need to do this not the mother in law..

Good luck.

Strap

PS; Give the kid your name ,last name now not later. much better for the child in case you dont get married , the child will still get a UK / Thai passport.

What Strap said!!

My son is called Mathew and there is no problems with Thai authority's about that .We were going to call him Thomas but if it got shortened to Tom he might not have thanked me in years to come .It sounds OK on you but a Thai kid would get teased at school .

I also know some Thai people with names like Jenny , Nancy, June ext so western names are increasingly common !

Err..

Strap

Did you really call yours Strap ?

Edited April 22, 2007 by swanks

[geordie]

The above posts are correct your son or daughter can have falang name, my daughter is called Annabel. You do have to have the name translated into Thai for the birth certificate. My daughter only has first name, no middle name.

Congratulations on the birth, and i hope you can sort it out.

Geordie

[TomBrown]

another thing, are you actualy in Thailand now???

as at the hospital, various forms should have been filled in by the doctors and yourself/girlfriend with all the relevant names on and everything should be checked very carefuly as mistakes can be hard to rectify.

BB

Hi,

I am in Thailand at present and was at the hospital for the birth.

My girlfriend completed the forms in Thai ,apart from my own name which we wrote in English. We have now translated my full name into Thai script.

This time I will go along with my girlfriend's sister and mother tomorrow and see what happens at the government office. Unfortunately my girlfriend is still recovering from the birth.

We originally had decided to name the baby with her last name, but since reading the posts have decided to name baby with my last name. Would there be a problem with the birth certificate having Jacob with girlfriend's last name?

If the government office here still refuses to have the baby's name as farang first and last, is there some official office I can call in Bangkok for example who can tell the office here that farang names are okay?

I was thinking, how can they tell if name is farang or Thai or from somewhere else?... one list of names from the internet I got had August and London as first names.

By the way, we intend to call our baby Mr. Jacob Brown - นาย เจคอป บราวน์

Thanks to everyone for youe advice and assistance.

Tom.

ps. Will post an update tomorrow.

[raro]

A friend of mine had a similar case...made everything clear with g/f and hospital and when the official paper was issued there was neither a farang name nor farang nationality. Now usually those papers cannot be changed after they are issued.

My friend made a BIG noise at the hospital's CEO office (one of the bigger establishments in BKK) and got the documents finally re-issued.

It is well worth the effort to make yoru stand!

[Strap]

Err..

Strap

Did you really call yours Strap ?

HaHa....

He would really hate me when he grew up then.

And Good luck Tom, Dont loose your temper just take your time and get all the doc's filled out

Bumrungrad has all the papers ready for you when the child is born so you could probably call there and ask for the document numbers ect. just a thought.

Cheers

Strap

[chanchao]

> By the way, we intend to call our baby Mr. Jacob Brown - นาย เจคอป บราวน์

I'd go for a Thai ' บ ' instead of ' ป ' for the last character in his first name. Sounds the same but it seems closer to the English 'B'.

[TomBrown]

> By the way, we intend to call our baby Mr. Jacob Brown - นาย เจคอป บราวน์

I'd go for a Thai ' บ ' instead of ' ป ' for the last character in his first name. Sounds the same but it seems closer to the English 'B'.

Here is the update, though I still have a problem with last name and an apparent dead line of 4pm today because the process has already been started / entered into computer. Any further assistance would be very much appreciated.

So far...

I went to the office in person this time and yet again they initially refused to register my baby as Jacob, stating "You can not call baby farang name". Well I calmly stood my ground and they made a few phone calls, spoke to the manager and eventually after more persuasion they accepted Jacob as the first name.

Next came entering into the computer that I was a UK citizen, by means of going through a printed list of Thai and corresponding English country names. There were two entries; British (BRI), and Of The United Kingdom (OUK), but they wouldn't accept either, I think because they were unsure. After printing off another list, there was an entry United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which matched the title on my passport so was accepted. Sorry I missed the code or this entry.

The next problem;

They printed everything off, and then got the paperwork ink stamped, but the lady I was dealing with came back with the paperwork and stated that the baby could not have my last name as I was not married to my girlfriend. She stated that "In Thailand is law you must be married to have farther last name", even though I tried to convince her that it was possible she said it was not. She phoned the Nakhom Phanom office and they said that it had to be the mother's last name.

As the process has already been started and partly entered into the computer, she says that it will have to be completed today by 4pm.

So I now have a situation where the records could have my girlfriend's last name for our child rather than mine. After speaking about it further with my girlfriend, we both have agreed that my last name would be better, but with a pending (apparent) deal line of 4pm today, I am not sure what else I can do.

Does anyone know of a head office or person I can contact that can confirm that the baby can have the unmarried father’s last name?

In head province office in Nakhom Phanom they said over the phone to the local staff here in Ban Phaeng that the baby had to have the mother's last name if unmarried. Maybe there is a national head office contact that can help?

I would really appreciate anyone's assistance.

Many thanks again,

Tom.

[TomBrown]

> By the way, we intend to call our baby Mr. Jacob Brown - นาย เจคอป บราวน์

I'd go for a Thai ' บ ' instead of ' ป ' for the last character in his first name. Sounds the same but it seems closer to the English 'B'.

Thanks for the info on spelling babies name, my Thai language skill are not that good yet.

By the way, I have discovered that the title for the child up to 15 years old (I think) has to be เด็กชาย <baby name> and not as previously posted นาย <baby name>, which is for a child over 15 years old. I think I remember the age correctly.

Thanks,

Tom.

[george]

Ask them to show you the law text regarding a farang Surname.

[TomBrown]

Ask them to show you the law text regarding a farang Surname.

I think their arguement is that as an unmarried father my child cannot have my last name, but if I were married then there would be no problem.

When I go back to the office today I will ask them to show me the text regarding the farang surename.

I am right to still stand my ground on getting my last name for the child?

Thanks,

Tom.

[Nawtilus]

I am not married and my daughter has my last name, no problem.

This would have been much easier for you to be done by the hospital at the time of birth.

Only thing I can think of is to go to the hospital and get them to help with it, they should have dealt with this before and would know ho to contact and do it right.

Depends on which hospital also I guess, if it was a upcountry back of nowhere place, maybe not.

Bumrungrad did it all for us, I just filled in the paperwork.

I repeat, we are NOT married and my children both have my surname and was absolutely no problem at the time when done at the hospital.

[geordie]

I live up country, my wife gave birth to our daughter 2 weeks early, so i was not there for the birth. We were not married at the time. The wife dealt with everything at the hospital, no problem for my daughter to take my family name.

Good luck in sorting this out.

Geordie

[TomBrown]

Well this little story has a happy ending after all. Much thanks to everyone who posted their advice

Yesterday I contacted two legal companies in Thailand who both said that in fact it was the case that by Thai law the father should be married before the baby can have his last name. They also said that I'd have to go to the courts to gain 'ownership' of the baby with the consent of the mother before I could resolve the issue with the last name. However, it appears that many farang fathers have managed to avoid this issue by having the hospital do the paperwork. The hospital where our baby was delivered was a government hospital in a north-eastern village, who only supplied us with the birth certificate. Incidentally, during the actual delivery, the nurse took a couple of incoming phone calls on her mobile phone which was in her pocket at the time, I was really surprised at that, but everything seemed to go well regardless and the nurse was really helpful.

Anyway, when I returned to the government office to convince the staff that our baby could have my last name I was met with a surprise. They said the paperwork was ready for collection and it had my last name for the baby.

What might have been the case here is that the paperwork with my last name for the child was already done and some of it stamped on my first visit that morning before they realised an issue with the baby's last name, so maybe the staff didn't want to go through the whole process again or be in trouble, so just left it as it was.

So I'm pleased that everything worked out in the end. I just hope that no issue later on appears regarding the baby's name.

Thanks again,

Tom.

[t.s]

Ask them to show you the law text regarding a farang Surname.

I think their arguement is that as an unmarried father my child cannot have my last name, but if I were married then there would be no problem.

When I go back to the office today I will ask them to show me the text regarding the farang surename.

I am right to still stand my ground on getting my last name for the child?

Thanks,

Tom.

no marriage and my daughter has my last name.

youare being handed a line o crap, either because the staff don't know how to do it , or someone wants the child to have a thai name.

it took me less than 5 mins to fill out the forms which the ospital submitted, though delivering at bumrungrad probably made things easier.

ts

[t.s]

Ask them to show you the law text regarding a farang Surname.

I think their arguement is that as an unmarried father my child cannot have my last name, but if I were married then there would be no problem.

When I go back to the office today I will ask them to show me the text regarding the farang surename.

I am right to still stand my ground on getting my last name for the child?

Thanks,

Tom.

btw, i beleive that one of the forms i filled out gave my permission for the child to use my name, due to the fact that i was not married

[Nibor1945]

Hi.

Although I was married to my Thai wife at the time, my son (born in Phitsanulok) has 2 first names. One farang and one Thai, his Family name is farang. The same for my daughter born where we now reside.

The only problem we had was explaining that my family name should be spelt ending with the letter D, as opposed to the Thai spelling which would have ended it with the letter T.

With patience and a calm attitude it is possible.

[RasiMike]

The Rasi Mike family just returned this afternoon from Bangkok after applying for Australian citizenship and both Thai and Australian passports. It turns out that on the original Thai birth certificate, our last name had one Thai letter 'incorrect' and no gap between the first and middle names (all English names).

The Thai consule certified the original and the correct English translation-with the explaination that there is some leeway where Farang names are concerned..so mai pen rai...suprise! I was a little shocked however, when we went downstairs and the passport office refused to issue the Thai passport based on there being no gap between first and middle names.

"You have to get new birth certificate" is what we were told by anyone we could appeal to.....so we came back to Si Saket to get a new one .

This morning we turned up and spoke to the officer who issued the original and asked them (politely) to correct it....

"Mai dai kaa" she said to my wife. When I asked why - she said she just couldn't. I said "you can because he has a farang name". She said "mai dai kaa".

Along comes her boss who sees I'm not too happy with this young lady. "Can do" he says after my wife explains to him the situation.

Then along comes HIS boss who says "what's the problem here"?

After a short discussion, some concerned frowns etc. He says "MAI DAI"...... they will correct the last name, but not separate the first and middle names.

His reasoning is that Thai born babies should have Thai or 'Thaistyle' names - one name only.

All correct spelling and English/Thai translations were supplied to the officer prior to issuing the original certificate - just to make it easier for them. However, these individuals in Si saket have decided that Thai born farang shouldn't have two christian names and their translation of our last name is better than that certified by the royal thai consule!

We walked out of there totally shocked and made our way to our local amphur to change the tabian baan. The lovely lady there registered our son in the blue book (correctly) and has told us not to worry she will help us change his name tomorrow morning and re-issue a birth certificate.

Now where is that beer?

[johna]

My daughters name was spelled wrong on her birth certificate, but this was resolved easily by going to the Ampurs office and requesting them to change the name. Apparently we can change her name as often as we wish up to the age of 15.

After that she can choose any name she pleases.

[ewelve]

Tom,

There is no problem at ALL giving your baby a farang name. me and my future wife have a 2 year old son. he is named after me, first and last name no thai name . birth cert shows mothers name,fathers name and baby's name . I am not thai. All you need to do is fill out the birth registration yourself. then you also fill out the form stating you are the baby's father and required to support the baby if your not married .you need to do this not the mother in law..

Good luck.

Strap

PS; Give the kid your name ,last name now not later. much better for the child in case you dont get married , the child will still get a UK / Thai passport.

Strap, i was refused (granted a few years ago now) a UK passport for my son by the Third Reich at the British Embassy because at the time i was not married, i had to wait until i married to get him one, unless things have changed mate the guy will have to marry to get his baby a passport. Regards Ewelve