Two surnames, patronymics and name order in USCIS translations

A certified translation copies a name exactly as the source document shows it, in the source order, with every part kept. The translator does not rearrange the name to fit a US pattern, drop a second surname, or decide which part is the "last name." USCIS regulations require a full English translation with the translator's certification, and a name that has been reshaped is no longer a full translation of the record. A certified document translation for USCIS follows that rule for every name on every page.

Most name problems in a filing come from the gap between how a civil record writes a name and how a US form asks for it. Form I-130, Form I-485 and Form N-400 each have separate boxes for family name, given name and middle name, while the record in the file may show two surnames, a patronymic, or a single name. The translation reports what the record says. The applicant, or the attorney or accredited representative, decides how that name goes into the form fields, and the translator does not fill them.

Two surnames on Spanish and Portuguese records

Spanish civil records usually give the paternal surname first and the maternal surname second. A child named Lucía Fernández Ortega carries Fernández from the father and Ortega from the mother. The two surnames together form the family name on the record, so the translation keeps both, in that order, and does not shorten the name to Fernández unless the source does.

Portuguese and Brazilian records follow a similar plan, but the order of surnames is less fixed. A record may list the mother's family name first or the father's first, and a person may carry several surnames. In a Portuguese birth certificate translation, the translator reproduces the surnames exactly as the registry wrote them, because the child's name, the parents' names and any later annotation all have to match one another and the passport.

When the source labels the parts of a name, for example "primer apellido" and "segundo apellido," the translation can carry the labels over as "first surname (paternal)" and "second surname (maternal)." Where the source gives no labels, the translator adds none, since deciding which surname came from which parent is an interpretation of the record and not a translation of it.

Patronymics on Russian and Ukrainian documents

A Russian or Ukrainian full name has three parts: given name, patronymic, and family name. The patronymic is formed from the father's given name, so the son of Ivan is Petr Ivanovich and the daughter of Ivan is Maria Ivanovna. It is part of the legal name and appears on the birth record, the passport and the marriage record.

The patronymic stays in the English text even though US forms have no box named "patronymic." The translation keeps it between the given name and the family name, and the applicant or the attorney chooses where it goes on the form, often by following the way the passport shows it. Surnames in these languages also change form by gender, so a husband named Sidorov and a wife named Sidorova share one family name in two grammatical forms. A Russian marriage certificate translation shows each spouse with the ending the record uses, and the translator does not make them match. Romanizing each name is a separate step from keeping its structure, and a Russian to English translation has to settle both.

Family name first, name chains and single names

Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Hungarian records put the family name before the given name. A Korean name written Park Min-jun could appear in English as Min-jun Park, but the translation should keep the source order or follow the order the passport uses, and say which part is the family name. Whichever choice is made, it has to run through every document in the case. A Korean birth certificate translation is a typical place to fix that order first.

Arabic names are often chains: the given name, the father's name, the grandfather's name and the family name. A birth record may show all four parts while the passport shows only some of them. Icelandic names are built from a parent's given name, and Ethiopian naming normally uses the father's given name in place of a family name. In Indonesia a person can have a single name with no family name at all, and the translation records one name instead of inventing a second.

The same rule covers all of these. The translator reports the parts that are there, in the order they appear, and does not fill empty positions. Where a document shows a single name, the English text shows a single name, and the applicant or the attorney decides how to enter it in the form fields.

Married names and maiden names on civil records

Many countries record a woman's name at birth and keep it on later records, while others change the surname on marriage. In Germany and Poland a married name can be used on the identity document, so the birth record, the marriage certificate translation and the passport may show different surnames for the same woman. A birth record usually shows the birth surname, and a marriage record may show both the birth surname and the surname chosen after marriage.

The translation reproduces each record as written. It does not apply the married name backward to a birth record or the birth name forward to a marriage record. If the source says "née," "geborene" or "z domu," the translator keeps that wording as the label for the maiden name. When a name later changes by court order or by a civil registry entry, the name change document translation is what links the two names for the officer.

Where name mismatches with the passport come from

An officer compares the names in the translations with the passport, the form and the other evidence. Five patterns account for most mismatches:

• A second surname appears on the birth record but is left out of the translation or the form.
• A patronymic is dropped because the form has no box for it.
• The family name is moved to the end in one document and left first in another.
• A married name is used in the translation of a record that shows the birth name.
• The same name is romanized two different ways in two documents.

The way to prevent these is to settle the spelling and order before the translations are ordered, starting from the passport, and to tell the translation company how the applicant plans to enter the name in the form fields. If a record shows a name differently from the passport, the translation still follows the record. The applicant or the attorney explains the difference in a statement, because the translator cannot change the text to remove it.

The Department of State's Visa Reciprocity and Civil Documents schedule is also worth a look before ordering, because it lists which version of a civil record each country issues. A translation of the wrong version wastes the fee.

What to gather before ordering the translation

Collect the passport, the full-form civil records, and any record that shows a change of name, then compare the name on each and mark every difference before the order goes in. Texliff translates names as the source records them and issues a separate certification for each document, starting with the birth certificate translation that sets the name for the rest of the file.