I’m a US citizen and my partner is German. We’ve been talking more and more about our future together and it’s lead me down the rabbit hole of German naming laws. What I’ve gathered is that, while it’s very easy to change your name in the US, it’s next to impossible in Germany.
I don’t really like the German system at all but thankfully, as a US citizen, it doesn’t apply to me. What worries me is that if we have a child together, the child will be a dual citizen and it’s not clear to me whose naming laws they’d be subject to. In theory, could the kid just change their name in the US and then Germany would have to respect it? For example: if the child grows up and decides they want to have my maiden name instead of their dad’s name or if something messy happens with divorce/remarriages and the child decides they want a different name than the one they have. These are pretty standard changes in the US so could the child just change their name there and tell Germany to suck it up and deal with it?
Similarly, I’ve read that the name “Gender Neutral Double-Barrelled-Last-Name” is not allowed in Germany. This is very much allowed in the US so, if the child is born there and given this name, Germany would just have to accept it, right? If the child is born in Germany and we want to name them this, could we just give them “Super Gendered Last-Name” and then just change their name to the one we want in the US?
To be honest, I don’t think these will be problems for us (I think I’m just going to change my name if we get married and I’ve heard they’re becoming less and less strict with the gender neutral name ban) but I strongly dislike not having the options and I would want my adult child to have options as well. That or hopefully giga chad Marco Buschmann will hold up [his promise of making it easier for Germans to change their name.](https://gettotext.com/buschmann-plans-to-change-the-naming-rights/)