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Italy rapped for forcing kids to take dad’s name

Italy must allow children to take their mother's surname and break away from the "patriarchal concept of the family", the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday.

Published: 7 January 2014 13:36 CET

Italy rapped for forcing kids to take dad's name

The Italian couple started their legal battle after their daughter was born in 1999. Photo: Kitt Walker

Alessandra Cusan and Luigi Fazzo won their case against the Italian state in the Strasbourg court, nearly fifteen years after beginning their legal battle to have their daughter take “Cusan” as a surname.

The refusal of the Italian courts to allow the couple to choose their daughter's surname “reflects discrimination based on the parents’ sex”, the European Court said on Tuesday.

“The tradition conferring the father’s surname to all the members of a family could not justify discrimination against women,” the court ruled.

Cusan and Fazzo first attempted to register their daughter with her mother’s name when she was born in 1999, a request which was rejected by Italian authorities.

The couple, from Milan, saw their subsequent appeal rejected in order to uphold “a principle which was rooted in social consciousness and in Italian history”, according to the European Court.

Despite Italy’s Constitutional Court deciding in 2006 that this view was outdated and went against the principle of gender equality, Cusan and Fazzo were still not allowed to choose their daughter’s name.

“The system in force derived from a patriarchal understanding of the family and of the husband’s powers, which had its roots in Roman law,” the Constitutional Court said, but argued that only parliament could change the rules.

The Italians then took their fight to the European Court, which concluded that the Italian system was “excessively rigid and discriminatory towards women”.

The prefect of Milan in 2012 allowed the girl to take the surname Fazzo Cusan, after the couple appealed to Italy’s interior minister, although the European Court said this did not go far enough.

Italy now has three months to appeal the decision.

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Five things to know about naming your baby in Italy

If you’re an international resident having a baby in Italy, there’s a lot to understand and get used to.

From healthcare provision and parental leave to ideas about which foods to eat during pregnancy, things are likely to differ from your home country in all sorts of unexpected ways.

When it comes to choosing a name for your child, there’s more to know about Italian naming rules and conventions. This can become complex if your partner is Italian and you need to navigate two sets of laws and cultural norms – as well as finding a name which both sets of grandparents can easily pronounce.

For some new parents, the differences between Italy’s naming conventions and those of their culture of origin mean it turns out not to be possible to use the name(s) they’d initially wanted. But it’s always better to find out about possible issues ahead of time, rather than at the registry office.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you’re having those all-important baby name discussions with your partner.

Foreign names are usually allowed

Some countries have strict naming laws, but in Italy, there’s some flexibility. Although that doesn’t mean anything goes.

Under Italian law, the main restrictions are that a baby’s given name can’t be a surname, it can’t be “ridiculous or shameful”, and it must correspond to their sex.

Foreign names are generally accepted, as long as they are written in letters that exist in the Italian alphabet.

READ ALSO: What are the rules for naming your baby in Italy?

While Italian registry office officials can’t refuse to allow a name, they can refer questionable choices to the courts, which may rule against a name deemed not to be in the child’s best interest – and can order parents to choose another.

This system means that whether or not a moniker is allowed often depends on the local registrar, and how well a parent can argue their case for a more unusual name, as shown in past court cases where Italian parents have opted for something a little left-field.

But foreign parents are given some leeway, and names aren’t denied simply for not being traditionally Italian enough.

Still, traditional names remain overwhelmingly popular, especially for boys: Italy’s official list of the most popular baby names reveals that the top ten has long been dominated by centuries-old titles like Francesco, Leonardo and Lorenzo.

You can’t name them after a parent

Italian law states that children can’t have the same first name as a parent (not even when adding ‘Junior’) nor of a living brother or sister.

This means that people from families with a tradition of passing down the same name through the generations will be unable to do so if they’ve moved to Italy.

In Italy, particularly in the south, many families instead maintain a tradition of naming children after their paternal grandparents.

Middle names are unusual in Italy

If you suggest the idea of a middle name to your Italian partner, you may meet some resistance or confusion as the concept is pretty much unknown here.

As anyone with a middle name knows, having one in Italy can result in bureaucratic mix-ups (for example, when only your first name is used in one system or document, but both are entered in another.) You may also find that Italians insist on using both your first and middle names together.

READ ALSO: ‘Not easy, but worth it’: The ups and downs of raising bilingual kids in Italy

This is often because people assume it’s a ‘double name’ or nome doppio. This is not particularly common, but it essentially means someone has two first names and both are used together, for example Anna Giulia or Maria Stella.

This is even less common with boys. However, the only time Italian law allows for a traditionally female name to be used for a male is in the case of Maria as part of a nome doppio for a male, eg. Antonio Maria or Giovanni Maria.

You can give your child a second or middle name (or even two – up to three given names are allowed). But if you want it to be a middle name (and not a nome doppio) you may find you need to add a comma between the first and middle names when registering, which will mean only the first name is then legally required on paperwork.

If you’re thinking of giving your half-Italian baby a nome doppio instead of a first and middle name, be aware that this too might result in future bureaucratic headaches, as Italian computer systems aren’t always set up to handle these, either.

Perhaps to avoid this sort of confusion, Italian parents often give children composite names (nomi composti) which are essentially two first names joined together, such as Pierpaolo or Mariavittoria.

You can use both parents’ surnames

In Italy, a woman keeps her maiden name for life, and women don’t take their husband’s name upon marriage. (As a result, non-Italian women who choose to change their names on marriage often end up in a tangle with Italian bureaucracy.)

Traditionally, a baby born in Italy is given the father’s last name, resulting in the mother having a different name from the rest of her family.

But in 2022, the Italian Constitutional Court ruled that babies should be given both parents’ surnames, unless the parents decide to use only the last name of either the mother or of the father.

While using only the father’s name is still by far the most common tradition, a growing number of families are now choosing to give the baby the mother’s last name as well.

Italian naming practices now look set to become similar to those in Spain, where children’s surnames are usually composed of the father’s followed by the mother’s.

Most Italian families do not hyphenate a double-barrelled last name though, again conscious that Italian bureaucratic systems often will not accept a hyphen.

You’ll need to be quick

Hopefully you’ll have a good idea of your baby’s likely name by the time of their birth, as you won’t have long to decide and register it.

In some countries, parents have more than a month to register the birth. It’s 42 days in England and Wales, for example, and up to 60 days in most parts of Australia.

But in Italy, new parents have three days to register the birth, and confirm the baby’s name, at the hospital registry or up to ten days to do so at the town hall registry.

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