Official Thai spelling of foreign names

[JerDek]

Does anyone know the correct procedure of changing or rectifying the Thai spelling of a foreigner's name?  Thanks to a 'certified translator' at my embassy 40 years ago my family name in Thai reads and sounds ridiculous. I put up with it for years but for my Thai children it's unbearable and they would like to have it rectified. Apparently that has to start with rectifying their birth certificates and that can only be done if the father's name is rectified first. I'm a Permanent Resident a with a blue house registration and a pink ID card. Where to start?

[simon43]

How is it spelt in Thai?

[JerDek]

I would rather not share that. The rectified spelling is ready to be submitted to the authorities. I would just like to know if anyone has experience in this matter and knows where to start.

 

[foreverlomsak]

I would suggest the local Ampere where your Blue Book and Pink Card were issued. This is the normal location for Thais, therefore should be the same for you.

Would advice you make a list of all who need to be notified, Banks, DL, etc.

[JerDek]

I think you're right and the suggestion to make a list of all organizations to be notified is a good one.  My fear is the Immigration Department refusing to recognize the 'new' family name and cancelling my Permanent Residency.

[Kwasaki]

9 minutes ago, JerDek said:

I would rather not share that. The rectified spelling is ready to be submitted to the authorities. I would just like to know if anyone has experience in this matter and knows where to start.

 

I don't have problems with my name written in Thai my first name they pronouce where I live using a 'L' sound most people in Bkk get it right. 

My surname has an 'S' on the end so no Thai sounds that not even my Mrs. 

Get your kids to change it to there Mother's surname if that much of a problem and have your name as a middle name. 

[Percy P]

10 minutes ago, Kwasaki said:

I don't have problems with my name written in Thai my first name they pronouce where I live using a 'L' sound most people in Bkk get it right. 

My surname has an 'S' on the end so no Thai sounds that not even my Mrs. 

Get your kids to change it to there Mother's surname if that much of a problem and have your name as a middle name. 

Just let it be carry on rrgardless

[KhunBENQ]

2 minutes ago, Percy P said:

Just let it be carry on rrgardless

Who cares about family names?

It's always good for a smile if they read my name from the pink card.

 

Let them transcribe Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski for a little warmup ????

[JerDek]

Speaking of pink ID cards, isn't it odd that Thai driver's licenses and Thai ID cards have the holder's name in both Thai and English but the pink ID card, which is for non-Thais, does not show your name in English.  Try checking in for a flight; your name is not the same as on the ticket...

[Kwasaki]

32 minutes ago, Percy P said:

Just let it be carry on rrgardless

I do my wife has my surname with no problems at all. 

It OP that seems to have a problem. 

[foreverlomsak]

5 hours ago, JerDek said:

My fear is the Immigration Department refusing to recognize the 'new' family name and cancelling my Permanent Residency.

Never thought of that.

Maybe you need to speak to them PDQ, before attempting anything else.

However I think you should be OK as your passport would be the main ID document for you on PR unless you have gone for citizenship.

Honestly I'm guessing now.

Hope it works out for you.

[Puccini]

11 hours ago, JerDek said:

...Thanks to a 'certified translator' at my embassy 40 years ago my family name in Thai reads and sounds ridiculous...

Regardless of the embassy translator's Thai transcription of your name, the district office that issued your house registration book should have made its own, correct transcription for that document. Perhaps not all district offices followed that procedure at that time.

 

Who made the new transcription to which you plan to change?

[mvdf]

18 hours ago, JerDek said:

I would rather not share that. The rectified spelling is ready to be submitted to the authorities. I would just like to know if anyone has experience in this matter and knows where to start.

 

 

Do you fear that someone might raid your bank account if that misspelt name is shared? You're asking for other people's opinions and/or advice about how to rectify the issue but would rather not share the crux of the matter. Right. Certain people indeed.

[brianthainess]

Live with it & move on. How often do you get called by your family name?

Everywhere I go, immigration, bank, hospital etc they call me by my Christian name Mr. Brian, sometimes by  Mr. (middle name) mostly plain Mister, but never my surname I don't give a fig. Thais can change their name on their ID card in 15 min, to Any name they want at any Amphur. ID number remains the same.

[LukKrueng]

21 hours ago, JerDek said:

I'm a Permanent Resident a with a blue house registration and a pink ID card. Where to start?

AFAIK there's no official Thai spelling of foreign names. They'll write it as you ask them to, but if you can't read/ write Thai they'll spell it as best a they understand. 

I don't know if 40 years after the fact it is still possible or as easy, but I know of someone who's wife realized soon after he got the red police book that the name in Thai is spelt in the wrong way. She wrote it as it should be and he took it to the police station which issued the red book. He had to pay 1000thb, they crossed off the name in the book, wrote it correctly and stamped it. As far as I can remember that was before he was registered in the blue book, so all other official documents showed the correct spelling of the name. His children were all born before he became a PR and their last name was written correctly to begin with so he only had to match his name to theirs. 

Anyway, if I'd try the local police station first. 

 

[LukKrueng]

3 hours ago, mvdf said:

 

Do you fear that someone might raid your bank account if that misspelt name is shared? You're asking for other people's opinions and/or advice about how to rectify the issue but would rather not share the crux of the matter. Right. Certain people indeed.

OP is asking how to change the name officially, not how to spell it, so what difference does it make what his name is? 

[RocketDog]

2 hours ago, brianthainess said:

Live with it & move on. How often do you get called by your family name?

Everywhere I go, immigration, bank, hospital etc they call me by my Christian name Mr. Brian, sometimes by  Mr. (middle name) mostly plain Mister, but never my surname I don't give a fig. Thais can change their name on their ID card in 15 min, to Any name they want at any Amphur. ID number remains the same.

I agree. I've only been here 5 years but have learned to save my energy for the really big issues, which happen thankfully infrequently.

 

Dealing with the bureaucracy here is always a nightmare to be avoided. I am extremely scrupulous with all things immigration.

I've been called so many things over my lifetime I don't care anymore.

Life is short.

[LongTimeLurker]

On 5/26/2021 at 1:35 PM, JerDek said:

I put up with it for years but for my Thai children it's unbearable and they would like to have it rectified.

 

Could you just get THEIR documents rectified if you're not so bothered about your own?

[Falcon]

We’ve been through this, it’s quite a nightmare situation to get it done, usual Thai BS…

 

firstly, to change the Thai spelling of your surname, BY THAI LAW, the name in Thai must mean something  and cannot be just as simple as having it changed with no meaning. By ‘have a meaning’ I mean that  it must relate and mean something when reading it, for example ‘สุขภาพดี (the healthy one), it can’t simply be ‘jones’ or ‘smith’ as that means nothing in Thai. It also has to be a unique name, where no one else in Thailand has that name. The only way that a person can have their name changed to any Thai spelling is when a woman gets married, then, the amphur will ask what spelling you want but, after that, it’s an enormous task to get it changed and, even when you have a meaning for the name, it’ll probably sound slightly different in Thai than it does in English due to the problem of ‘meaning something’. If you do find a suitable spelling of your name in Thai, you’ll need to go to the amphur office in your area to get all of your families documents changed but can only do this once the amphur checks the spelling against a list of the Thai names currently used in Thailand. If someone else has registered that spelling, they won’t do it and tell you to think of another name/spelling.

it can be done but will take some time and thinking about to be able to get it done. Any spelling change in Thai will not affect your visa status as you are known already as Mr. Jones or whatever, in English or whatever nationality you are, the Thai spelling, for you and for immigration/banking, etc. services won’t matter.

[khunPer]

On 5/26/2021 at 8:43 AM, JerDek said:

I would rather not share that. The rectified spelling is ready to be submitted to the authorities. I would just like to know if anyone has experience in this matter and knows where to start.

Certified translation of fathers family name is the first thing to do. It might cost some thousands baht, as you pay for the translators education and right rubber stamps in the several page report with copies of the translator's graduation certificates, the document furthermore includes a page with a copy of your passport's name page, and the "official" translation of that page; everything duly stamped ans signed. Before having the certified document made, however make sure your name sounds right when read back by some Thais that don't know your family name, the education and rubber stamps are not a guarantee for a right translation, but needed for approval of the correct translation...????

 

With the certified translation document of your name you can have both your own yellow house book registration and the birth certificate of a Thai national child corrected, which in my case was a handwritten correction on the official document, duly stamped and signed by officials in the tessa ban office (office for house book registrations), where the child is registered in a house book. That office will also correct registration in the blue house book. You might need to bring the mother also for her approval, she also handy just for translation and communication in Thai language with the officials. As always, thing might be handled different in different parts of the Kingdom, so check with local tessa ban office exactly what they need, before starting the process...????

 

With the corrected birth certificate and house book – you might need signed photocopies – you can go to the amphor office and have a new ID-card with correct Thai-spelling. With wai and smile, and polite appearance, everything went smooth with help from kind officials everywhere, in my case...????

[LukKrueng]

30 minutes ago, Falcon said:

We’ve been through this, it’s quite a nightmare situation to get it done, usual Thai BS…

 

firstly, to change the Thai spelling of your surname, BY THAI LAW, the name in Thai must mean something  and cannot be just as simple as having it changed with no meaning. By ‘have a meaning’ I mean that  it must relate and mean something when reading it, for example ‘สุขภาพดี (the healthy one), it can’t simply be ‘jones’ or ‘smith’ as that means nothing in Thai. It also has to be a unique name, where no one else in Thailand has that name. The only way that a person can have their name changed to any Thai spelling is when a woman gets married, then, the amphur will ask what spelling you want but, after that, it’s an enormous task to get it changed and, even when you have a meaning for the name, it’ll probably sound slightly different in Thai than it does in English due to the problem of ‘meaning something’. If you do find a suitable spelling of your name in Thai, you’ll need to go to the amphur office in your area to get all of your families documents changed but can only do this once the amphur checks the spelling against a list of the Thai names currently used in Thailand. If someone else has registered that spelling, they won’t do it and tell you to think of another name/spelling.

it can be done but will take some time and thinking about to be able to get it done. Any spelling change in Thai will not affect your visa status as you are known already as Mr. Jones or whatever, in English or whatever nationality you are, the Thai spelling, for you and for immigration/banking, etc. services won’t matter.

A name with a meaning is only for Thai names, not foreign family names. That means if the op would like to change his last name to a Thai name it would have to be approved as having a positive meaning in Thai and verified that no one else has registered that name. PRs have their original foreign names simply transcribed in Thai writing with no regards to it's meaning or meaningless, and as in many countries family name have been adopted hundreds of years ago most such names are not unique and if 100 people named Smith were to get a Thai ID they will ask have the same name in Thai. 

I know of Thai people that have changed their English spelling of both first and last names with no problems at all. 

[khunPer]

37 minutes ago, Falcon said:

We’ve been through this, it’s quite a nightmare situation to get it done, usual Thai BS…

 

firstly, to change the Thai spelling of your surname, BY THAI LAW, the name in Thai must mean something  and cannot be just as simple as having it changed with no meaning. By ‘have a meaning’ I mean that  it must relate and mean something when reading it, for example ‘สุขภาพดี (the healthy one), it can’t simply be ‘jones’ or ‘smith’ as that means nothing in Thai. It also has to be a unique name, where no one else in Thailand has that name. The only way that a person can have their name changed to any Thai spelling is when a woman gets married, then, the amphur will ask what spelling you want but, after that, it’s an enormous task to get it changed and, even when you have a meaning for the name, it’ll probably sound slightly different in Thai than it does in English due to the problem of ‘meaning something’. If you do find a suitable spelling of your name in Thai, you’ll need to go to the amphur office in your area to get all of your families documents changed but can only do this once the amphur checks the spelling against a list of the Thai names currently used in Thailand. If someone else has registered that spelling, they won’t do it and tell you to think of another name/spelling.

it can be done but will take some time and thinking about to be able to get it done. Any spelling change in Thai will not affect your visa status as you are known already as Mr. Jones or whatever, in English or whatever nationality you are, the Thai spelling, for you and for immigration/banking, etc. services won’t matter.

I kindly think you are wrong when it's about foreign family names; to my knowledge and experience they don't need a meaning, nor being checked, as it's already a family name.

 

However when Thai citizens originally where registering their family name it had to be unique, beginning with two unique syllables, but not needed to have any meaning, and when there were no more unique names available with two syllables it became three, and later four. It's said that you from the number of syllables in the family name knows how old the family is in Thailand, i.e. many Chinese merchant families that migrated to become citizens and chose a unique Thai name around 1900, or later, have four syllables in their family names.

 

A given first name has to be Thai, or rather not foreign, and might be checked in a book with names that are not allowed to be given. Some members have posted that they didn't have any problems with a Western sounding given name and wasn't checked; others, including me, got a child's given name checked before approved for a birth certificate, but I was lucky as they couldn't however find my child's name there, so they approved it...????

[LukKrueng]

1 hour ago, khunPer said:

I kindly think you are wrong when it's about foreign family names; to my knowledge and experience they don't need a meaning, nor being checked, as it's already a family name.

 

However when Thai citizens originally where registering their family name it had to be unique, beginning with two unique syllables, but not needed to have any meaning, and when there were no more unique names available with two syllables it became three, and later four. It's said that you from the number of syllables in the family name knows how old the family is in Thailand, i.e. many Chinese merchant families that migrated to become citizens and chose a unique Thai name around 1900, or later, have four syllables in their family names.

 

A given first name has to be Thai, or rather not foreign, and might be checked in a book with names that are not allowed to be given. Some members have posted that they didn't have any problems with a Western sounding given name and wasn't checked; others, including me, got a child's given name checked before approved for a birth certificate, but I was lucky as they couldn't however find my child's name there, so they approved it...????

You have it wrong. Family names were introduced by King Rama VI in the early 1900's (around 1910-15), and to this day new family names have to be unique, which means that if a Thai person wants to change his family name it must: 1. Have a positive meaning and 2. Must be unique. The application for the new name is done at the district office and a date+time stamped on the application. There's a waiting period to verify no one else has applied for this name, and if anyone else has - the person that applied first will get it (hence the date+time stamp).

As for first names - a law was passed about 30 years ago that a first name for a Thai New born must be a Thai name or word with positive meaning. At first the law was strictly followed by all district office, but later on some offices were not very strict about it so non Thai names might be possible to register at some district office and can't be registered in other places. 

The book you mentioned is not a list of not allowed names, but actually a list of all known first names possible. However you can still name a child by any other Thai word with positive meaning. The only Thai names not allowed to be used are the Royal names. 

[tifino]

be like having Callum Murray for a name...

 - and forevermore they see you as being very fishy... 

[khunPer]

2 hours ago, LukKrueng said:

You have it wrong. Family names were introduced by King Rama VI in the early 1900's (around 1910-15), and to this day new family names have to be unique, which means that if a Thai person wants to change his family name it must: 1. Have a positive meaning and 2. Must be unique. The application for the new name is done at the district office and a date+time stamped on the application. There's a waiting period to verify no one else has applied for this name, and if anyone else has - the person that applied first will get it (hence the date+time stamp).

As for first names - a law was passed about 30 years ago that a first name for a Thai New born must be a Thai name or word with positive meaning. At first the law was strictly followed by all district office, but later on some offices were not very strict about it so non Thai names might be possible to register at some district office and can't be registered in other places. 

The book you mentioned is not a list of not allowed names, but actually a list of all known first names possible. However you can still name a child by any other Thai word with positive meaning. The only Thai names not allowed to be used are the Royal names. 

Thanks for your reply, and thanks for correcting me.

 

However, first it was questions of translation of a foreigner's family name (in present time), re. OP's question, and from my own experience you only need a translation, the name can sound exactly as in the foreign language, no matter wheather it makes sense, or not, in Thai language; and it doesn't matter if other people in Thailand already have the same Family name. I'm Danish, so my family name could well be "Jensen" (it's not, but Jensen is a very common Danish surname).

 

I wrote by memory about "Chinese merchant families that migrated to become citizens and chose a unique Thai name around 1900, or later..." so it could well have been 1910. My source is the book "Bridging the Gap" by Kriengsak Niratpattanasai, and I just checked if my memory served me right, which it did, it's on pages 177-178.

 

I didn't mentioned anything about the procedure for applying for a Thai family name, but that is as you describe it, litte difficult. In older times, early 1900s, as I referred to, you needed to need to apply for five potential surnames, and "with luck, one of your five choices would be an original one". However my source don't mention anything about the syllables should have meaning in Thai, just that they shall be a unique combination. "Ethnic Thais have quite short surnames, such as Boonmee or Srisai, The longer names usually belong to subsequent generations of Chinese immigrants," the author states, and says that his own surname has six syllables.

 

Regarding given name or first name, I've always heard that the book – or binder with lots of pages, as it was when I was giving name to my luk khrueng – contained known illegal, or forbidden, names. But you might well be correct, I've only heard about it, and have a one time experience myself. Anyway, my luk khrueng has a quite unique name, also in foreign terms, which was not on record in the province where I registered the birth, even they carefully checked their file, where after the name was accepted...????

[Puccini]

5 hours ago, khunPer said:

...With the certified translation document of your name you can have both your own yellow house book registration and the birth certificate of a Thai national child corrected...

JerDerek, the OP, does not currently have a yellow house book registration, but a blue book.

[jackdd]

On 5/26/2021 at 1:35 PM, JerDek said:

I put up with it for years but for my Thai children it's unbearable and they would like to have it rectified. Apparently that has to start with rectifying their birth certificates and that can only be done if the father's name is rectified first.

Your children just go to the Amphoe, fill out the "name change application paper" (I obviously don't know the correct name of the form), pay 100THB and get a new ID card with whatever new name (if it's not taken already) they want.

[Puccini]

26 minutes ago, jackdd said:

Your children just go to the Amphoe, fill out the "name change application paper" (I obviously don't know the correct name of the form), pay 100THB and get a new ID card with whatever new name (if it's not taken already) they want.

Judging from the text passage you quoted from the OP's post it is "apparently" not as simple as that. This is what the OP wrote:

 

Quote

I put up with it for years but for my Thai children it's unbearable and they would like to have it rectified. Apparently that has to start with rectifying their birth certificates and that can only be done if the father's name is rectified first.

 

 

 

[khunPer]

1 hour ago, Puccini said:

JerDerek, the OP, does not currently have a yellow house book registration, but a blue book.

If OP is a foreigner without having obtained permanent residency, he cannot be registered in blue house book, but his child would be registered in a blue house book...????

[khunPer]

Just now, khunPer said:

If OP is a foreigner without having obtained permanent residency, he cannot be registered in blue house book, but his child would be registered in a blue house book...????

Edit, correction, I see now that he has obtained permanent residency, so he can be registered a blue house book...????