Changing a name from another language

Can I change my name to an English name?#

Yes, if you want to, and nothing requires you to. A deed poll changes a name from another language in the same way as any other change: GOV.UK says you can change any part of your name, add or remove names, or change the spelling, as long as the new name is pronounceable, has no numbers or symbols, and is not offensive. HM Passport Office's guidance to its staff starts from the same place: "the name the customer uses is up to them". Keeping your name exactly as it is is just as valid, and this page explains how UK documents handle a name from another language either way.

What can I change?#

• An English form or a translation of a first name or surname, used as your legal name.
• A simpler spelling of the same name.
• Both together: an English first name with your original name kept as a middle name, or the other way round.
• The original form of a family name that an earlier generation changed.

Each is a change of name, made by deed poll and signed in both your current and your new name. A few small changes are treated more lightly for a passport: GOV.UK accepts a slight change to the spelling of a forename (its example is Jane to Jayne), a new order of forenames or a dropped middle name with two documents showing you use the name. Adding a forename, HM Passport Office says, is a full change of name. Adding, removing or moving a middle name explains the difference.

How do UK passports show names from other languages?#

HM Passport Office's system follows the international passport standard set by ICAO. It cannot print accents or other marks on letters, and uses instead the alternative spellings ICAO has agreed, which are published in a transliteration table. If your name is on the table, staff simply use the agreed spelling; if it is not, they ask for written evidence of an alternative spelling, such as an official document or a letter from your country's embassy or high commission. The guidance also uses the table for other alphabets: staff transliterate a patronymic shown in Cyrillic letters with it, for example. UK passports issued abroad before 1 April 2014 could include accents.

Names in Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic follow the same rules. A Welsh name with an accent is given the agreed spelling. Irish and Gaelic names translated into English are a useful example: unless you send evidence that you have changed your name, the passport is issued in the name on your birth certificate, with an observation that you are also known by the English form. Using an English form every day is not the same as changing to it.

What if I hold another country's passport?#

Change that one first. GOV.UK says the name on your non-British passport must match the name you want on your British passport, and the Home Office's policy is that the names in passports and national identity cards take precedence over those in deed polls and marriage certificates. If you are not British, the Home Office expects your passport or identity card in the new name before it changes the name on your eVisa.

Whether the other country accepts a UK deed poll, and how it spells your name, is that country's decision, so ask its embassy, high commission or consulate before you change. HM Passport Office allows for differences that cannot be avoided: a hyphen, space or apostrophe does not need aligning, a spelling that follows a country's naming conventions can be explained in an observation, and a country's transliteration rules are among the reasons it weighs if you cannot change the other document. GOV.UK asks for certified translations of documents not in English or Welsh, for example with a child's passport application or an enrolled deed poll.

Changing your name with two nationalities, using a UK deed poll for another country's passport and changing your name if you are not a British citizen go step by step, and using a UK deed poll abroad covers the notarised copies and apostilles some countries ask for.

Can my birth certificate show both names?#

Only where the birth or adoption was registered in Scotland. Section 43 of the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1965 lets the Registrar General record "the English equivalent of a non-English name" as an alternative name, and HM Passport Office's guidance gives Domhnall and Donald as an example of the two shown together. National Records of Scotland's change of name pages do not describe a separate application, so ask NRS before you apply. Elsewhere the rules differ: the birth certificate checker shows what each UK register records.

Can I go back to an original family name?#

If a parent or grandparent anglicised the family name, your birth certificate shows that form, and taking back the original is a change of your own name like any other: a deed poll from the name you use now. HM Passport Office asks for evidence of each change to your name, linking back to your birth certificate or your last passport, not for evidence of your family's earlier changes. If you are tracing when the family name changed, The National Archives' guide explains where records of past changes may be found, and notes that foreign nationals living in Britain were barred from changing their names from 1919 until 1971, with exceptions such as a woman taking her husband's name.