Birth Certificate

[chopin]

As you might know, there is no english used in thai birth certificates. A foreign fathers name must be "translated" in to thai letters.

When my daughter was born in a bangkok hospital a year ago, my name was "translated" to thai for the hospital documentation, then it was sent to the district office to make the birth certificate. We picked up the birth certificate just a few days after. Unfortunately, we did not notice that there had been a misspelling of my last name until now. There is one extra letter added. Today, i went to the hospital to see their documentation, but there the spelling was correct. Obviously, the district office made the error. I had the staff at the hospital call the district office, they simply responded that "the parents should have noticed the error themselves when they picked up the certificate, and its now over a year ago, its to late". Simply, its our own fault and there is noting to do about it. They certainly have done nothing wrong.... So, not a good idea to go and argue with the "jao-naa-tii" at the district office, right? But i suppose there must be others have had similar experiences. Rather, it must be quite common with these "missinterpretations" in the birth certificates. Anybody got some advice?

[Mario2008]

Ask them politely to change it, as it is important.

Youc an call the deaprtment of provicial administration for advise. They have an information telephone number on their webiste: www.dopa.go.th or call the government information line at 1111.

[Niranut]

Agreeing that it can and should be changed. There have been typos on two of my three children's birth certificates here. For one they wrote in the correction in red and signed where they corrected it. That was almost a year after we got it.

For the other they printed a new one, and had to reprint it twice because they made a new mistake after the first reprint. We did notice the errors right away on the second child's, so I'm not sure if that was why they could just print a new one or not.

No charge and no questions asked in either situation.

[chopin]

More problems...........

A few years back i applied for a house registration in an appartment, but in the end the district office never approved the application. I totaly put this behind me and forgott about what went on in the process. But now i found this documents, with my name translated and sent to the ministry of interior to be certified, In this translation my name has yet another spelling, with 4 letters different from the one in the birth certificate. So, depending on who does the translation, you might get different spellings. I dont think there are any 100% rules about how foreign names should be translated, even the most skilled translaters would probably make translations slightly different, especially if the names are uncommon. But, one should of course get ones name translated only 1 single time, and stick with this translation. I always thought these translations did not really matter, that it was only for the sake of pronunciation, and that its the name in the passport that counts, But its more complicated than that.

I suppose the translation of my name sent to the ministry of interior is registerd permanently and cannot be changed, although i never had any house registration. Then, the translation of my name in the hospital documentation is wrong, and now it will be even more difficult to get the birth certificate changed. So the questions is, would it be possible to have the district office change the name in the birth certificate, althought its different from the hospital documents?

[Mario2008]

That is true there is often no single correct translation, it are sounds that are translated not actual letters.

My first document with my name in Thai was my work permit. I always copy my name from my work permit and use that one for any official document and give it to a translator if they need to translate a document to Thai. Saves a lot of problems as on all government papers my name in Thai is the same.

[chopin]

So the question is if the district office will change the name on the birth certificate, based on the translation that is certified by the ministry of interior? Although this is different from the one in the hospital documentation?

[Mario2008]

They should change it to the official translation, the hospital translation is not an official translation.

They wil have procedures for correcting spelling mistakes, but as said if you find probles I would call DOPA or the government information line and ask for advise.

[chopin]

This morning i went back to the district office, today they had a better attitude. They made the change in the birth certificate. No fee.

[Mario2008]

Good to hear all went fine this time.