Mexican Birth certificate and apellidos

[mr bill]

With the rapidly approaching due date of our twins I?m wondering what gets put on a Mexican birth certificate.

My wife?s IMSS is in her maiden name but that has been now changed to my last name on all her other documents - well all but at IMSS.

Will the babies get a Mexican style Paternal and Maternal apellido? Will it be Byrnes de Byrnes or Byrnes de Sangduan? Or can we choose just a single last name?

[meroberts]

GOOD QUESTION! Since nobody has responded yet, I will give you my two cents. First, what do you want them to be? If you want them to be father?s last name first, and mother?s last name second, make sure that you write them down clearly for them. Exactly how do you want their names to read? And also tell them BEFORE they are even born. Especially with twins! And if they are boy and girl, be specific, especially at IMSS.

At Immigration, I have experienced, more often than not, that they mix up the names really bad. If you are having a boy and a girl, I would go as far as doing it in PINK and BLUE. You think you can?t go wrong? Think again... Foreign names are hard unless they see them in writing. Good luck with your choices. Can?t wait for the grand event.

M

[doncoulter]

You raise some interesting questions, Bill, on the subject of Mexican apellidos. I can answer one question fully and the others partially. This being Mexico, things are complicated, so my answers will be, too.

First, Martha?s response makes perfect sense to me. She?s absolutely right that the bureaucracy tends to mix things up, and I would add that such mix-ups tend to become permanent. My wife?s acta de nacimiento, for example, misstates her true date of birth by exactly one month. Guess which DOB?the real one or the official one?she uses on important documents.

Now to your questions: Will the babies get a Mexican style Paternal and Maternal apellido? Will it be Byrnes de Byrnes or Byrnes de Sangduan? Or can we choose just a single last name?

I?ll take the second question first. If your wife?s last name is legally Byrnes except on IMSS documents, then I doubt Sangduan will enter into the equation. As for the ?de? part, you can forget it. Your twins would not be ?Byrnes de Byrnes.? The normal practice is that a Mexican child takes two apellidos?its father?s first (paternal) apellido followed by its mother?s first (paternal) apellido. These go one right after the other, with no intervening ?de.? For example, my wife?s father?s apellidos were Quiroz Esquivel, and her mother?s were G?mez Moure; therefore, Gela?s apellidos are Quiroz G?mez. There is no ?de.? Where the ?de? may come in is after a woman marries. Gela?s full name is Mar?a de los Angeles Quiroz G?mez (ignore that first ?de?; it?s not relevant to the present point), and that?s the name she uses most of the time on official documents. However, she can and often does choose to drop the G?mez and add a ?de? plus my surname: Mar?a de los Angeles Quiroz de Coulter. Any Mexican would understand that the ?de Coulter? means she?s married and her husband?s last name is Coulter. Is adding one?s husband?s name fully legal for most purposes? We?re not sure, but it?s a common practice. Sometimes she uses Quiroz de Coulter on official documents that are not too terribly important; she could probably use it with IMSS, for example. But for the really important official stuff, like passports and wills, she sticks with Quiroz G?mez.

Do men ever do the reverse?add ?de? plus the wife?s name? Not yet.

A further confusion is that some apellidos already include a ?de.? For example, de Le?n, or de la Madrid. If Carmen de Le?n married Miguel de la Madrid, she could conceivably call herself Carmen de Le?n de de la Madrid. One hopes she wouldn?t.

Back to your case: If your twins, then, take one Byrnes from you and another from your wife, they would be Byrnes Byrnes. Not Byrnes de Byrnes. As silly as Byrnes Byrnes might sound, there are many Mexicans who have names like Juan Jos? G?mez G?mez. As Gela likes to say, it?s the way that it is.

But would the kids have to be Byrnes-times-two? This brings us to your first and third questions. Here the short answer is, I don?t know. Who knows what the bureaucracy will allow you to do? And how much do you care? Is it important to you that the kids be named Byrnes period, or would Byrnes Byrnes be okay?

You may not have an option, of course. But maybe you will. Before I became a Mexican citizen, on some documents I got away with using my last name only, i.e., Coulter. On others, my mother?s maiden name was added, for Coulter Halverson. On still others, after I told some official I didn?t have a second surname, I was Coulter Ninguno. My middle name is Michael, and my car-insurance company thinks I have two surnames: Michael Coulter. I?ve never cared much about this sort of thing; the results might have been different if I had. The point is that even Mexican officialdom is often pretty loose about apellidos, at least with foreigners.

What may also be relevant to your situation?or, admittedly, may not?is that on my citizenship papers I?m simply Don Michael Coulter. Similarly, my IFE voting credential (the main credential Mexicans carry) has only the one apellido. In other words, even as a Mexican, I was given a choice! This surprised me. The citizenship and IFE folks knew, obviously, that I had a mother and that she had a surname, and they therefore could have insisted that I be officially known as Don Michael Coulter Halverson. But they didn?t. Is this a great country or what?

All of which I mention in order to suggest that you may have the option?one apellido or two??particularly if you push for it.

It?s important to note that most Mexicans use both of their apellidos only in formal, legal, and professional contexts. Day to day, most use only the first, paternal apellido. My wife, once again, is Mar?a de los Angeles Quiroz G?mez, but even her closest friends are unaware of the ?G?mez.? To take another example, Felipe Calder?n is certainly one of the most well-known Mexicans, but I bet not one Mexican in a hundred could tell you his second, maternal apellido. (It?s Hinojosa.)

So let?s say your twins are officially named Jack Byrnes Byrnes and Jill Byrnes Byrnes. My point is that those would be their formal names. In real life, hardly anyone would know they are Byrnes squared.

As an aside, this business of two apellidos leads many foreigners into error. My dentist, like most medical professionals here, uses both of his last names in his work: he?s Daniel Garc?a Nieto. Many foreigners refer to him as ?Dr. Nieto,? but that?s incorrect, Nieto being his second apellido. The correct way to refer him is as Dr. Garc?a Nieto or, more simply and more commonly, Dr. Garc?a.

Finally, Bill, you still have plenty of time to think about names for the twins. That?s because their names won?t be official until you register their births at the Registro Civil, and you can do that anytime within their first six months. Until then, you may try out different names every day if you like, and see what sticks.

Don

[mr bill]

Thanks Don Don -

Now that is what I call an answer to a question. Be great to more folks contributing great material like it on the forum regardless the subject.

Your last paragraph sums everything up well - a second source confirms that we indeed have six months [before incurring a multa] to enter the children?s names in the civil registry. Given names of each twin have already been picked - middle names depend on sex/day of birth/day of the week (e.g on Monday can't begin with Thai character _ or _ (sorry don't have Thai keyboard enabled))

Now I wonder what six passports will cost as each twin can claim three nationalities.

[meroberts]

Thanks Don. This discussion is getting interesting and naturally confusing at the same time. For interesting information on history and naming conventions of Spanish naming go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs

And then there is the CURP which is strictly used in Mexico and is what the Byrnes twins will be required to have almost from the start. It is like our SSN in the US.

Here is an example I copied from the Internet:

Gregorio Morales Loranca born in Tlaxcala on August 31, 1994.
CURP: MOLG 940831 H TL RRR O 9
MO = Initial and vowel of Last Name L = Initial of Mother's Last Name G = Initial of First Name 940831 (two digits year, month and day of birth) H = Gender: H for "hombre" (male) and M for "mujer" (female). TL = Abbreviation of TLaxcala. Each state has a two letter code and people born abroad are NE "Nacido en el Extranjero" (born abroad). RRR = are the internal consonants of the last name, mother's maiden name and first name O = a letter or digit code to assure there is no duplication. 9 = Verification Digit.
Reference website: http://www.tlaxcala.gob.mx/registrocivil/s_curp.html

Now, there is yet another number that you may have heard. C.R.I.P. (Clave de Registro e Identificaci?n Personal) = Registration and Personal Identification Code
It is a 15 alphanumeric code, assigned to birth Certificates as of 1982. And we also have the RFC = Registro Federal de Causantes. A number used for ?Hacienda? (our IRS) which is also similar to CURP but it contains just the letters of the name and date of birth MOLG 940831.

This is where planning ahead will really be crucial for any foreign couple having babies born here. To be sure that all their documents will match and their multiple passports will not be confusing, make your list and check it twice. HA!

In Mexico: First Name, Second Name, Father?s Last Name, Mother?s Last Name
In the US: First Name, Second Name or Middle Initial, Father?s Name (Maybe later husband?s name ? if applicable and chosen elected)
In Thailand: I don?t know. Bill, please fill in the blanks?

Martha

[mr bill]

Martha, In Thailand is where it can get really confusing as the passport office can change your name on a whim. When Pim first got her passport Pakavadee Rattanasing became Pakawadee Ratsing because that's what the passport office thought best.

[meroberts]

WOW! I would propose that for the sake of your children you decide the way you want your children?s names to read for the rest of their (single) lives on the Mexican books, their birth certificates, etc. And, write it down for them. Then make sure they wrote it correctly. I have been Martha Robert (no s) at Telcel since I got my first cell phone because I trusted that with a name like Roberts WHO could make a mistake, right? -- WRONG!

They tell me that to correct it I would have to close the account and start all over again... W-H-A-T???? Go figure! I hope your wife?s birth certificate is correct and you can use it for the children. Whew! And you think registering a child is a piece of cake, huh? Great topic! Thank you for the challenge.

Martha