Judgment of the Noord-Holland District Court dated May 13, 2020

Petitioners are of Moroccan origin and both have parental authority over their son. Their son is only a few months old, and they made a mistake in the birth registration regarding his first name. The intention was to give the child a certain Moroccan first name, but during the birth registration, one of the petitioners mistakenly translated the name from Moroccan.

As a result, there is a spelling error in their son’s first name. In some cases, it is possible to correct the name through the municipality, but generally, the name choice made during birth registration is considered final, and parents cannot change it. In this case, the municipality refused to make the correction, as is often the case, and instructed the petitioners to request a name change through the court.

The petitioners have a birth announcement card for their son, which correctly states his names. This birth announcement card clearly shows that the petitioners made an error during the birth registration, and the first name is misspelled. Based on this, the petitioners believe they have a sufficiently important reason to change their son’s first name in accordance with Article 1:4 of the Dutch Civil Code. To further support their claim, the petitioners refer to an (old) ruling by the Utrecht District Court dated March 8, 2006, ECLI:NL:RBUTR:2006:AW4873, in which the court stated:

“It is known to the court that names are often incorrectly or incompletely registered during birth registration with the civil registry. Since the petitioners want to correct this mistake while the minor is only three years old and the minor’s interest is served by having consistent first names within the family, the court is of the opinion that there is a sufficiently important reason for the requested change.”

Additionally, the son of the petitioners is only a few months old. The court grants the petitioners’ request and instructs the municipality to make the necessary correction to the name.