Judgment of the North Holland Court on May 31, 2021

The petitioner has been using the name Hans all his life, but at birth, only the given name Peters was mistakenly officially recorded. This was because his parents mentioned on his birth announcement: “we will call him Hans.”*

The petitioner experiences a lot of inconvenience in his daily life because of this situation. He often gets into discussions about his name (both professionally and privately) and frequently has to explain to others that he is actually named Hans, not Peters. This often leads to awkward conversations. For this reason, the petitioner wishes to formalize the long-standing nickname. This way, he won’t have to explain it to others anymore. It would also strengthen his sense of identity because every time he is confronted with the data on, for example, his passport, it feels like he can’t be ‘himself’; the names seem to refer to someone else. The petitioner has been using the nickname Hans since his early childhood. Additionally, it is important to note that the petitioner was bullied in the past with the name Peters, and he does not want to be confronted with this name in any way. The name Peters is a tribute to the petitioner’s grandfather, but the petitioner has no attachment to the name and wishes to remove it. He wants to officially record the long-standing nickname Hans.

* Real first names are fictional