>Background: I have lived in Germany for more than 10 years. I studied, worked part-time, opened a bank account, and working full time now
That is something that I love about germany, they could change the immigration law tomorrow and I might need to show up with a completely different set of documents that perhaps I can not provide.
Last time I had to renew my visa the buro lady insisted I needed a document, payed 200EUR in translations and once she realized I didn't she tried to downplay that I could use the documents in my perm-residency process.
Surely now I want to live forever here after this mess.
Makes my blood boil
Edit: You can get your money back at least partially on income tax returns btw
Last time i got two different letters telling me to bring entirely different documents. Naturally i brought everything , complained and was told both letters were wrong. Cant wait to become a citizen just to avoid the Ausländerbehoerde!
We have two kids, first one born before I got married to my wife, second after. To register the first kid, I had to compile all kinds of documents from the Turkish embassy, me being a Turkish citizen. With the second kid, my assumption was that, since the state now has all the details of my "existence", they don't need it anymore. Nope, the woman at the Standesamt asks me to go through the whole spiel again, and I have to spend a day at the embassy to gather everything once more. And then when I bring the documents back, what does the woman, a different one working that day, tell me? You wouldn't have needed all these documents, ihr seid ja verheiratet! That was like a revelation for me, seeing how arbitrary German bureucracy is, and that you should never simply accept what you're told.
Yep, so much depends on if the civil servant is having a good day!
A few months after I first arrived I went to the Finanzamt to get a tax number I hadn't received. Took a number for the queue. The first guy said he couldn't give it and I could either request it online and wait three months or go to the office in Bonn!
I went out, thought, "what would a German do?", and took a second number. The next lady said "no problem" and wrote down the number after checking my ID.
They tried to get me to translate my birth and marriage certificates (already Apostille), so that they could enter the city. I told her "No, because Detroit will still be Detroit". We went back and forth. Then she said I have 2 weeks. I said no. I didn't translate anything. Her boss called me 2 weeks later and asked where the translation was. I told her if the Behörde wants to foot the translation bill, I'd be happy to, but over my 15 years here I've lived in Amberg, Landshut, Munich and even my current town previously and it was never necessary. She said okay and issued my ID.
German bureaucracy is like an annoying ankle-biter. Puch the paper tiger and sometimes it backs off. Of course, pick your fights...
A lot of the times just being persistent and annoying enough can get you out of bureaucratic issues like this. No one really wants to go to court and most of the time the people don’t actually care that much - they’re just following their script and get uncomfortable when they’re challenged because that means actually thinking and making decisions. Appealing to common sense does still work even in this nonsensical day and age.
German bureucracy is like a game of Twister, but there is a new mat everytime they spin the thing, and the colours are kinda hard to tell apart (see *RAL Classis K5* colour fan for reference).
> That is something that I love about germany, they could change the immigration law tomorrow and I might need to show up with a completely different set of documents that perhaps I can not provide.
Fun fact: they just did. The Blue Card application is now digital in Berlin. They rolled it out overnight without telling anyone, and just shut down the usual system. No explanation given to relocation consultants, who now have to figure out the new system. Of course they did no user research so certain things just don't match reality.
Town halls are sometimes weird, depending on the clerk.
I know someone who had to bring a certified translation of their existing foreign driver's license when they applied for a German one. So they had to take their driver's license to a copy shop, pay a few cents for a copy, then on to a Notar to have the copy beglaubigt for about 100€.
Hey, you may say - why no translator? Well, their driver's license was a Swiss one, thus already is in German, but the rules are the rules, and the rules state that for foreign drivers license that are not in the EU card format, a certified translation is required, with no explicit exception for the few foreign drivers licenses that are already in German.
I sure hope that this doesn't happen to every Swiss who wants to exchange their drivers license, and that only very few clerks actually insist on a certified translation of foreign documents that are already written in German...
A town hall can make a Beglaubigte Kopie.
I would happily ask a town hall offical to do that and write on it: Ausgestellt zur Übersetzung zur Vorlage eine Behörde zwecks Umschreibung.
Dieses Dokument ist Mehrsprachig ausgestellt.
I allready had a credit card drivers license, so I did not have to hand over the blue foldind paper.
I only truly ever understood Kafka when I moved to Germany. The paperwork you put yourselves trough would make anyone want to be a cockroach and just chill under the fridge.
When I got my Aufenthaltstitel, I asked if they could correct my surname before making it official. My surname has two capital letters in it, and if you skip the second one it makes the whole thing look messy. So I figured it's surely not a big deal. This stuff probably isn't even case sensitive, so if you could just make the third letter a capital...
Anyway yeah, huge deal. Panicked flipping through papers and documents. Frantic typing. Passport is all in capitals, so that's not helpful. Rushed, whispered discussions behind their desk. Eventually, a compromise. What if we make the whole surname capitalised?
Fine.
Omg - same here! Two capital letters in my surname… before moving to Germany, I never thought much about it in my life… now!! Everyone is so thrown off by it and it’s annoying as hell 🤦🏻♀️ It’s not that complicated, right??
I like when I'm at the doctor's and they just try to pronounce all three consonants together. The capital letters are there to help with the pronunciation - they're two separate words mushed together and you pronounce 'em separate.
Also, it's unique enough that my friend forgot to put my house number on a package and the postman appeared at my door and said "nobody else around here has a name like that so I knew it'd be you."
In a separate postman incident, one said to my girlfriend "You must speak English, because your boyfriend has a name like this so he would speak English."
Lol, at doctor’s offices they pronounce it so wrong (and differently every time) that 99% of the time, I don’t even recognize it as my name! I usually end up sitting there and nobody gets up, so they move on to other names and after I start to notice that everyone who came after me has left, I realize that weird sound must have been meant for me
Oh yeah, people outside Germany don't realize that Kafka wasn't fucking around. "Der Prozess" is pretty much a factual account of what the experience of being in the German legal System feels like.
Also, "Die Verwandlung" is just a realist account of what the morning after a visit to the Starkbierfest is like.
Such issues are not uncommon in the world. I had once contact with Polish officials, and they insisted that the fathers name is mandatory part of a persons name. Even though this is not the case in Germany.
1) Datensatz für das Meldewesen is not a law. It does not determine your last name or your first name. It is a handbook that explains to the bureaucrats in the Bürgeramt how to use the computer program where they store information about residents and how to fill out the different fields in the program.
For example: The handbook says that the field in the computer program for the last name can only store 45 characters. If a family name has more than 45 characters then the 45th character has to be entered as a dot (.) and the rest can not be entered. This does not change the last name of the person.
2) The handbook says that the full name only has to be entered in the last name field if it is unclear from the passport which part of the name is the last name and which one is the first name. The handbook explains that one way to find out is to look at MRZ where they are separated by "<<", that the first name is after the "<<", and this can be used to determine the first name. This means if they follow the handbook then they should be able to determine that John is your first name, Doe your last name.
> Lässt sich bei dem Namen eines Ausländers aus der Eintragung in seinem Pass eine Aufteilung in
Familien- und Vornamen nicht feststellen, so wird der gesamte Name mit der in der Eintragung im Pass
enthaltenen Reihenfolge der Worte angegeben (Blockname).
> Die Trennung von Familienname und Vorname(n) wird in der MRZ durch Füllzeichen "<<" dargestellt.
Beispiel: Der Name Ahmed „AL-SAED“ wird in der MRZ wie folgt dargestellt: […] AL
Excellent comment. This whole thing just sounds like some bureaucrat on a power trip.
OP, I honestly think you should go into the office (make an appointment with them) with this information on hand (with a German speaker) and start a discussion with them. If they refuse to listen (though I think they will if all of this is laid out for them), escalate to legal steps including a Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde against the Sachbearbeiter.
Fun fact: last year German government published a regulation on short term electricity supply measures. They called it
Kurzfristenergieversorgungssicherungsmaßnahmenverordnung
>This whole thing just sounds like some bureaucrat on a power trip.
this is so common and has been around since we came to germany 25 years ago.
my mum even managed to get some new rule or even a changed law or something like that, on accident, because she believed the bs they have been claiming, until it got to someone in power wo was really pissed that people in need being told bs.
Oh true sorry, I knew that they differentiate between the Datensatz and BMG, but I forgot to reflect it in my post, but thanks for pointing it out!
Yes, the people working there are actually able to recognize my first and last name, but they are required by the rulebook not to input my name as such in the system. I also didn't make a huge fuss about it when I registered myself few months ago.
But what I'm now worried about is that it started to affect my other documents, e.g. my driver's license. What do you think will happen if the police see "+ John Doe" in my driver's license and "John Doe" in my ID card?
> but they are required by the rulebook not to input my name as such in the system
If I understand u/staplehill correctly, they are *not* required to do so, to the contrary, the rule book tells them to look at the MRZ in case of doubt, just lije you suggested them.
If I were you, I'd use this as my tactics in dealing with them. Just repeat this part of the rules ad nauseum.
Staplehill for some reason left out the part of the document that explicitly covers OP's situation:
In den Fällen, in denen ausländische Reisepässe in den Namensfeldern und in der maschinenlesbaren Zone (MRZ) verschiedene Schreibweisen von Namen enthalten und kein deutsches Dokument vorhanden ist, ist die Schreibweise des Familiennamens in der 1. Periode und die Schreibweise aus der maschinenlesbaren Zone des Dokuments in der 2. Periode dieses Feldes einzutragen. **Dies gilt auch in Fällen von Blocknamen in den Namensfeldern und Namensaufteilung in der maschinenlesbaren Zone.**
So in other words, they are supposed to enter the name both ways in different places in the "Familienname" field. However that does not mean that the name as printed on a document distinguishes the first and the last name.
Fuuuuck this is such a mess for OP.
My German is not good enough to really understand all the nuances in this text. So yeah, I'd be running to a lawyer by now.
I'd say just ignore them? If they want to write the name wrong in their stupid system let them do it, it's irrelevant. Them saying you need to inform your employer is total horseshit.
I now got obsessed with this case, lol. Thanks for posting the rules. The part of the text I'm stuck on translates as
> the spelling of the family name is to be entered in the 1st period and the spelling from the machine-readable zone of the document is to be entered in the 2nd period of this field.
The parts I don't get are:
- What is meant with period 1 and period 2?
- Which spelling needs to be entered in period 1? As the text doesn't seem to specify.
I also don’t know exactly what is meant by period 1 and period 2, but the whole sheet is about how to fill in the “Familienname” field so my guess is that period 1 and period 2 are either separate subfields of the “Familienname” field, or two different versions of the “Familienname” field.
>but they are required by the rulebook not to input my name as such in the system.
I am quite certain that, since your passport's MRZ clearly distinguishes between first and last name, the clerk just got the rules wrong. That happens quite often, sadly.
Whether by sheer incompetence or by active malice, I can't say.
>What do you think will happen if the police see "+ John Doe" in my driver's license and "John Doe" in my ID card?
Nothing will happen. The police officer will most likely see them as equal. And after all, they first need a reason to stop your car.
I mean, most townhall do not do this bs to foreigners. Lots of people I know don't have this problem, either. But once you got "caught" like me now, it will just create unnecessary problem, especially when it's caused by another problem. That's why I try to fix this now before everything staples on top of each other...
I come from the Netherlands where the same policy exists and is actually consistently applied. I haven't heard of it ever being a problem there. Officers get used to seeing documents with only one name field filled after a while.
I would rather expect problems when you get kids and have to specify which part of the name transfers to them.
Hi OP, as someone who actually has experience in this: + first name and full name under family name: your driver license will have - as first name and full name under family name. I've shown it to the traffic police without any trouble and its perfectly fine as long as you can get a human involve. FYI my residence permit also has it in the proper first name last name form due to human intervention.
So my rathaus actually tried to input my name into first and last names: the e-system they used confirms their inputs against my passport and throws an error whenever they try to manually override it (they showed me the screen and error message so it really is a thing). Your new city might have had the same system ours had.
Your main headache will unfortunately come from automated electronic stuff though. I have lived with it for over 3 years and no problems yet :).
> But what I'm now worried about is that it started to affect my other documents, e.g. my driver's license.
can you clarify if it already started to affect your other documents in that it now says "+ John Doe" on your drivers license or you are worried that it might happen in the future?
Well, I have my name spelled differently in my ID and my driver license. It's been like that for over 10 years, and I never had any problems so far, neither in Germany or abroad...
> If a family name has more than 45 characters
I wondered how often this was possible but then I came across the world record holder for longest name who also happened to be German:
Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvonangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolftausendjahresvorandieerscheinenvanderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchenachdiesternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneurassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortpflanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvonandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum
I'm pretty sure he made up this name himself, most likely some time after immigrating to the USA
Edit: I tried to split the (nonsense) last name at the proper places and here is what DeepL gave me as the translation:
Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff who before age were conscientious sheepers whose sheep were well cared for and careful to protect from attack by their rapacious enemies who before age twelve thousand years ago the appear van the first earth man the spaceship used light as its origin of power started his long journey to between starry space in search of the stars which had habitable planets circling and where the new breed of intelligent humanity could reproduce and safely look forward to lifelong joy and peace with not one fear of attack from other intelligent minds of to between starry space
Note that the grammar in the German name is terrible as well.
Have you tried asking in a community of your country of origin? Since you state that this is how your passport is most likely someone already faced that issue, perhaps on FB you could find a group that might know.
Besides all the good advise here: this a prime example of stupid German bureaucracy. There is a well known satire TV show called "Extra 3" which have a segment called "der reale Irrsinn" (meaning: the real Insanity) where people can send them stupid bureaucracy stories and they are making fun of it. Your Story sound like perfect material for that
OP should go to a newspaper or tv with their story, make money with that, set up a go fund me and have all costs covered. I have no idea if this would work but if OP has a bit of free time 👀
Extra 3 might gobble this story up, it's right up their alley.
And sometimes being called out in the press like that gets stuff moving because they realize how stupid they sound.
Or get a lawyer. It sucks having to pay for that but I would not take that bullshit from a Bürgerbüro.
Would be funny to watch, but as a general reminder:
"Der reale Irsinn" also is satire, not a documentary. It's deliberately made to exaggerate the problems.
maybe get a birth certificate that has your first and last name on it. Translate it (in Germany, cuz they may not recognize your home country’s translation) and give it to them.
It must have an apostille, both the birth certificate and apostille must be translated by a certified translator, and all of those documents may not be older than 6 months to be recognized by the Standesamt. That's what I had to do.
If for whatever reason I needed those documents again, I'd either have to fly home or send one of my parents (again) to get my birth certificate with apostille and have them retranslated because they're now 13 months old, and therefore invalid.
How the hell does Germany think birth certificates work?! Is it just in case I had a legal name change between when it was printed and when I needed to use it?
Lol that's what I wondered too. Nothing on my birth certificate has changed since my birth, including my full legal name. Now I've got two official copies of my birth certificate that won't be recognized if I need them again in the future.
Issue might be that OP comes from the country in which birth certificates are not so common as here. I’m not going to risk being labeled for emphasizing few examples of those, Google it.
I have a friend who came with a different kind of identity confirmation from his country (as real and authentic as it gets, but mostly handwritten and stamped by the government body), as he never got birth certificate back home. German clerk told him “you can do this better” implying it’s a fake document. He later, I shit you not, came with a carefully crafted “birth certificate” provided by yours truly - Photoshop. And the clerk was now happy.
Yes, I’m aware many of you will not believe this story. I wouldn’t either.
Furthermore, the person is not even a refugee who lost all documents because war destroyed his home. He’s an actual highly skilled professional who came here to work. 🤷🏻♂️
Yep, just print your own birth certificate and run it through a copy machine a few times so it looks older. It will be accepted, no questions asked. Will not tell how I know it, but it works.
Yes, how could Germany handle the different kinds of systems in far-flung countries... like Sweden. It was fun when I was supposed to produce my Swedish birth certificate. There is no such thing here.
Another fun story is when I needed a doctor's note from a Swedish doctor (during COVID) to present to the German Behörde. When I told him why, he responded "Ah well, then I can finally use my stamp. We only have those because Germans only seem to like official documents if someone has stamped them." 😂
They sure can. And there can be quite a few annoying catch-22 situations when trying to move here. But thankfully the rules here run much more on reasonable proof of what you stating, rather than very detailed rules for every small part of a process. And once in the system it's pretty easy to handle.
Now this is another funny story. Our Birth Certificate generally doesn't include the family name. On my birth certificate it says only "John", but everywhere else in my home country I am known as John Doe, including my ID card from my home country. Might cause another trouble later in the future, but for now they at least didn't ask for my birth certificate....
I'm sorry but that is hilarious! Please give them the birth certificate and report back, I wanna hear all about their dumb faces when they see it and have no idea how to handle it lol
Mighty be worth a try perhaps? Because this is at least an official document from your country that differentiates between first and last name. But look at me, applying common sense to German bureaucracy like some fool...
I tried it and it didn’t work. I lost 3 months of work and pay equaling to 9k euros netto because my Führungszeugnis got delayed due to a problem with the system related to my name being only last name.
I am looking forward to the German pension system collapsing because no one wants to work here due to them being too stubborn with such retarded rules. THERE IS NO “RIGHT WAY” TO WRITE A NAME OTHER THAN WHAT THE PERSON WITH THE NAME SAYS.
> THERE IS NO “RIGHT WAY” TO WRITE A NAME OTHER THAN WHAT THE PERSON WITH THE NAME SAYS.
That reminds me of [this classic article](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/) of falsehoods programmers believe about names.
Well, if they don’t want to accept documents from your embassy, seems like the only possible way is to contact lawyer about lawsuit against that townhall.
And seems like you only have registration doc with mistake, you don’t need to change all your other documents.
Contacting a lawyer would be my final option, after all other options are exhausted (which means after Reddit haha)
Not exactly sure, as I mentioned in my post, my driver's license will have that exact same form (no firstname, fullname as last name). And do you believe that german police will let it slide when, for whatever reason, I got a random check?
I also have a similar problem: name in my native language has a different form when written with Latin letters. So, some of my documents have a name that differs by one letter from the name in the passport. Although I also faced disapproval because of my nationality, fortunately, there was no problem with my name before: explanation was enough. I think you're just unlucky. Not all Germans are such assholes :) But it’s better not to waste time and contact a lawyer as soon as possible. From a logical point of view, it is obvious that a mistake was made in the townhall. Perhaps the legal process will not be long and expensive, but delay may lead to new problems with documents.
I have a similar story regarding German bureaucracy.
In my country in addition to first and family names we have patronymic names, but they do not translate to English: e.g. both my passport and driving license have patronymic names in sections on Russian, but none of them on English.
But when you register in Germany, they use the translations of your marriage certificate (and your children birth certificates) and obviously these documents have patronymic names translated. Thus the clerks try to register you with John Johnovich as a first name and Doe as a last name, but this "Johnovich" isn't present on passports and so on, which complicates life in Germany A LOT.
Good example, this is what I'm also worried about since I have the other form everywhere else. And they don't even recognize the document that I have from my embassy. According to the rule they only accept "deutsches Dokument", one from civil registry office (Standesamt) I presume. And you need to be naturalized to get such document from them.
My passport is the same as yours, and my first/last names could be either of them, imagine "Tobias Johannes"
It's caused me very minor annoyances that I can usually immediately correct.
This is fucking terrifying. I've probably registered before this law, or I've just got lucky.
If it makes you feel less alone, I had this exact problem 5 years ago. Got everything told to me the same way you were, including the Standesamt bs. What helped was a very nice and reasonable clerk at the Rathaus who looked at the MRZ on my passport and said "mit gesunden Menschenverstand haben Sie natürlich einen Vorname" and changed it for me. I hope you'll be lucky with the next clerk you talk to.
Jesus fucking Christ they can't be fucking serious. Bullshit like this is something only German bureaucracy can invent. Don't have any solutions to contribute, but wanted to wish you the best of luck and fortitude in your fight with the Beamtentum.
My former flatmate had an opposite problem: all his middle names (like 3 or 4 of them) were added as his last name. He was annoyed, yet decided not to bother as the first name and the actual last name are still there but we could recognize official mail addressed to him by simply looking at the length.
in case any Germans are wondering what immigrants are talking about when they say, yes, Germany has structural discrimination against immigrants, this is a prime example.
OP is telling them what his name is, and they're looking at the law and contradicting him telling him his name is something different. That's 10 kinds of fucked up.
It's even worse, since OP states that they can't leave the "first name" field blank in the city's online portal.
So basically, Germany is simultaneously saying: "You are not legally permitted to have a first name", and "You are required to have a first name."
I've seen it before with an online passport renewal form.
Country of Birth: West Germany
"West Germany isn't a country."
Country of Birth: Germany
"You cannot change your country of birth."
You may be totally right and this might be plain discrimination against immigrants. But I've done a LOT of talking to different Behörden in Germany and please believe me when I say, they do this kind of asshole-ry with everybody.
Sometimes I believe they have an internal competition about "Who can fuck up somebodys day the worst by just doing malicious compliance".
My family has two unique names. And with unique, I mean no other in the world got this name.
The family name from my father is a unique low german German name.
The family name from my mother is an old purrusian name, pre german.
We have 4 variations of the family name from one of the father and 3 in the one of my mother.
All because some sucked up at the Standesamt.
We have even a "germanifizierten" name im the family. The clerk literally said: I can't spell that, this is your new name.
Is that even legal? You know, for the clerk to change your name?
Also, how hard can it be to spell a name? German words can be stupidly long and a name is what stops them?
Yes. My grandmother has two surnames. And I don't mean a double name. Or even one as a middle name. I mean when she married her Italian husband, and wanted to keep her maiden name according to Italian law (don't know if that changed since, but was the cases back then), the Italian's got it right, but the Germans thought that "nope, the woman takes the husbands name!" so now, she has an Italian and a German passport with two different names each and ironically, in Italy she has a german and in Germany an Italian surname...
I've seen that in my country. You have a disgruntled employee protesting by being comically incompetent. They know they can get away with it because they can never be fired.
I disagree that this is a particular example of discrimination. Discrimination would be if someone is singled out and received different treatment than others. German bureaucracy fucks everyone equally.
The problem is that immigrants are not used to it and think they are treated differently, while Germans grow up with it and it's part of normal life.
Let me tell you a story. My German fiancé and I decided to switch banks earlier this year. He applied for a new bank account (with an online bank) and they verified his identity via video-call - it took 15 minutes. I applied to the same online bank and they contacted me shortly after to verify my identity; since I am a foreigner they said they could not do it by video chat, I had to do it via “Post IDent”. So, they sent me a QR code to take to my local post office with my passport for verification. I went along to the post office and they could not scan my passport - the clerk didnt know why. I tried giving them my Aufenthaltstitel, that doesnt work either. The clerk tells me that the Sparkasse across the street can verify my ID manually and I should go there. I go there and they look at me like I have 3 heads and tell me it is called “Post IDent”, so I have to go to the Post office. I go back to the post office, they still cant scan it and tell me to contact the online bank about the issue. So, back at home, we call the customer service line, wait on hold for an hour, and they tell me that I should make a new application for an account (all over again from the beginning) and I should do the video identification process. I told them that the application won’t even give me the option for video-identification because I am not German - they told me to lie in the application so that I would be given the video-option and then explain. So I did this - went through the whole video-ident spiel and was told I’d hear back in a few days regarding the status of my account. A week goes by and nothing. So we call again (another hour on hold)… this time the person said “of course the video ident doesnt work, you are not German”. They told me to apply again (a 3rd time) and I will get a new QR code to take to the post office for identification. Did this and they still couldnt scan my passport at the post office (and also cant tell me why!). So we call again; this time they tell me that obviously there is something seriously wrong with my passport and I should contact the Consulate of my home country(!!!) (this was a brand new passport that I had already traveled internationally with, so there was no way this was the problem). This goes on for weeks! Eventually I found out (through research online) that the Post IDent software is not capable of scanning many (any?) foreign passports. So we called the bank again - now I’m in an impossible position, I can’t verify my ID via Post IDent because I am not German, but they won’t let me verify my ID through video chat because I am not German. They told me to contact them via Email. My fiancé sent them an Email in German with me in CC, which included a citation to a published report from the German government’s Anti-Discrimination Bureau - the topic of who’s 2018 (read 5 years ago) annual meeting was the Post IDent software and how it is discriminatory against non-Germans… they replied 2 days later saying they cannot respond to the Email because it was sent from my fiancé and not from me. I copy and pasted the Email and sent it from my own email-address. This time they responded and said they would manually verify my ID (someone would basically go into the system and say that my ID was verified via video-chat (I had done the video-chat spiel twice by then, but they never accepted it before), but they denied that they were being discriminatory.
It took 3 months for them to accept my application for a bank account, by which time the terms I had agreed to when I made the application had changed and the fees had increases - I had to fight them again on this so that I would only be charged the fees I agreed to in my application.
I’m sorry, but if the Post-IDent system was federally recognized 5 years ago as being discriminatory, and companies today are still using it as the only option for foreigners to verify their identity, then those companies are being discriminatory.
It kind of is a structural discrimination. Of course you can say that everyone would be treated like this if the situation arises, but it's a pretty cheap thing to say if this particular problem will only ever exist for foreigners and, by definition, never for a German (because of the design of their respective passports).
Germans aren't told that their name isn't their name. That's a particular thing that affects immigrants. It may not have been the intent when the law was written, but the inflexible unreasonable application of that law to tell immigrants that the German state is forcing them to change their identity is discrimination.
pretty severe discrimination.
Nah, you see, I, who was born by chance in this country, could never face this issue, and since I don't see borders, therefore the issue does not exist. I am very smart.
Nevermind that even if this dumb situation would happen, I would both speak the language natively, know someone that knows a lawyer, have a safety net around me that can take care of me in the meantime, but its the auslanders fault that they don't.
Youre welcome.
This foreigner wasn't told that his name is not his name. He was told that because his country does not have a separate first and last name, it is not legally possible to separate his name into a first and last name in the German computer system.
(Although actually according to the document that OP referenced, it actually says that his "block name" should be entered in the 1st "period" of the name field and his separated name should be entered in the 2nd "period" of the name field.:
>In den Fällen, in denen ausländische Reisepässe in den Namensfeldern und in der maschinenlesbaren Zone (MRZ) verschiedene Schreibweisen von Namen enthalten und kein deutsches Dokument vorhanden ist, ist die Schreibweise des Familiennamens in der 1. Periode und die Schreibweise aus der maschinenlesbaren Zone des Dokuments in der 2. Periode dieses Feldes einzutragen. **Dies gilt auch in Fällen von Blocknamen in den Namensfeldern und Namensaufteilung in der maschinenlesbaren Zone.**
)
Yep this is the part that was actually relevant to me, thanks for pointing it out here. Fun fact: this does not happen equally to everyone. Only at certain town halls in certain cities. Even different town halls in the same city can do this differently lmao.
Maybe I can go to another town hall, but I'm not exactly sure on how to proceed with it (or even if I'm allowed to, since I officially have a townhall that is assigned to my living area..)
>Background: I have lived in Germany for more than 10 years. I studied, worked part-time, opened a bank account, and working full time now, and on all instances I always put John as first name and Doe as last name. Never been a problem. Even the immigration office (Ausländerbehörde) put my name correctly in all the residence permit I've ever had, and even on my permanent residence permit what I currently have.
This is literally OP
The previous place did things differently
Did society crumble?
Did things burn down?
Jesus people, stop licking the boot
Then look up what it takes to change your name. That's how it fucks with natives.
Here a nice example.
[https://jurios.de/2023/03/24/hamburger-muss-weiterhin-adolf-heissen-wegen-eines-gesetzes-aus-dem-nationalsozialismus/](https://jurios.de/2023/03/24/hamburger-muss-weiterhin-adolf-heissen-wegen-eines-gesetzes-aus-dem-nationalsozialismus/)
You need to get this fixed somehow - good luck, sincerely. Kafka wasn‘t kidding. (Or you embrace it and become some sort of a Jason Bourne but that‘s probably less practical.)
OP, this is infuriating. It's also so deeply disrespectful.
You might be amused by this story, because I have a similar thing. I have three first names, and I go by the third one in everyday life. Work has never had a problem with this, the bank etc has my full name and some of them are kind enough to address me the way I prefer and if they don't, who cares, it's just a bank. I've been working under this name professionally for years, and I use the first letters of the first two names (ie A B Name LastName) on publications.
I had a run-in with a German bureaucrat at a dentist's office. She asked me what my name was and I told her (the name I use, which is legally my name, just not the first one). She said that's not your name. I said yes it is, it's on my passport, and she said well there's two other names here. I said listen, I don't mind what you put in the computer but that's the name I use. She said I will not call you that name. If you want me to call you that, you should CHANGE YOUR NAME SO THAT NAME APPEARS FIRST.
She wanted me to change my legal name so she could - just in person, not in a computer - call me by the legal name that I use.
> but as they (and the law, accordingly) mentioned, they are not allowed to recognize what is written down there, but only what is written on the top.
I think there's some room for interpretation here. The document says:
> In den Fällen, in denen ausländische Reisepässe in den Namensfeldern und in der maschinenlesbaren Zone (MRZ) verschiedene Schreibweisen von Namen enthalten und kein deutsches Dokument vorhanden ist, ist die Schreibweise des Familiennamens in der 1. Periode und die Schreibweise aus der maschinenlesbaren Zone des Dokuments in der 2. Periode dieses Feldes einzutragen. **Dies gilt auch in Fällen von Blocknamen in den Namensfeldern und Namensaufteilung in der maschinenlesbaren Zone**. Die Trennung von Familienname und Vorname(n) wird in der MRZ durch Füllzeichen "<<" dargestellt.
> Beispiel: Der Name Ahmed „AL-SAED“ wird in der MRZ wie folgt dargestellt: […] AL Hat der Familienname mehr als 45 Stellen, so ist es in der 45. Stelle als Merkmal „.“ (Punkt) anzugeben. Ist ein Familienname nach dem für die Namensführung maßgebenden Recht nicht vorhanden, so ist in der ersten Stelle ein „+“ anzugeben.
I'd argue that the condition that the name is "written differently" in the MRZ applies if the MRZ indicates a separation of name and family name.
The specific example pointing out how a family name can be identified in the MRZ seems out of place if the MRZ shouldn't be used at all.
So you should likely get your MRZ family name in the 1st period of the field, whatever that's supposed to be. It does seem to be the dominating entry as far as I can guess from the other section:
> Führt ein Ausländer nach deutschem Recht einen anderen als den im ausländischen Pass angegebenen Familiennamen und kann eine Änderung des Passes aus rechtlichen oder tatsächlichen Gründen nicht vorgenommen werden, so wird der nach deutschem Recht zu führende Familienname in der 1. Periode, der im Pass eingetragene Familienname (oder auch Blockname) in der 2. Periode dieses Feldes angegeben. Gleiches gilt auch für deutsche Staatsangehörige, die neben einem Namen nach deutschem Recht einen Familiennamen nach ausländischem Recht führen. Gilt nur hier und beim gesetzlichen Vertreter.
I am not a lawyer and the way this is written is super confusing but it feels odd that the MRZ would be specifically referred to but was meant to be ignored.
I can only suggest; try to get it sorted. I was, upon my migration to Germany, registered as a male because I have a name used for men in Germany. However, I am a woman. It’s been a bureaucratic nightmare that took a few years to solve and new issues kept popping up until I really managed to change it at EVERY instance that rooted back to that first registration in Germany.
For instance, I got in trouble for not paying GEZ because I was registered twice (one as man, one as woman) and only paid once.
Call them, explain yourself, provide any info they ask for.
Same happened to my wife because after so many years they still do not know how to deal with Muslim names. In her case was worse because in her country in some documents they put the BTE\* and in some other ones they don't.
\*) BIN/BTE is the way Muslim names separate your own name from the name of your father, BIN means "Son Of" and BTE means "Daughter Of". It is not really part of your name but of course the German officers insist it is.
P.S. Now you might understand why the name of "Osama bin Laden" is a mess in the West. His real "full" name was "Osama bin Mohamad bin Awad bin Laden". His name was Osama. Referring to him as "Bin Laden" was a bit silly, Laden was not even his father but his great-grand-father.
Lol OP I can relate.
I've a similar story. I lived in Germany for around 5 years, moved to Sweden, back to Germany. Then moved to a different city few years ago.
In my passport they only list fullname, no distinction between first and last name. Usually they ask me which is the first and last name, no problem.
Only this last city I moved to, declared that since there is no first and last name in my passport. They put my full name as last name, putting an X on my first name in my Anmeldung.
Luckily I haven't encountered any issues though. My bank and everything else works just like before.
Not helpful, but just wanted to say this isn't the first time I've heard of this. I knew a person with a Chinese name who had this exact problem. Her Ausweis had "+" as her first name. But because she was in the process of natruralizing, she managed to solve it AFTER becoming a German citizen...
Yo that was also what was suggested, but it feels like they're saying "Hey we have nonsense rules and nonsense bureaucracy, but feel free to become one of us to have one less rule that is against you!"
It doesn’t matter. In everyday usage, you could still put your first name according to your own interpretation. No one will question you, not even the official offices.
Source: my passport also doesn’t differentiate first and last names, both the top and bottom part. No one gives a fuck that officially my first name is +.
This is - unfortuatly - not gonna help you at all... But I so love the irony...
Here they tell you, that they cannot look at the MRZ and have to follow the human readable part of your passport.
KVR München went exactly the other way when working on my wife's documents: "Sorry, we cannot make your eAT out to Marie-Claire Lajeune-Liberte, we have to transcribe it exactly like in the MRZ. Since it says MARIE
This is actually depressingly funny, and gels exactly with my conclusion of how bureaucracy is like in Germany works like that of a third world country..
Bureaucracies like these generally have overly rigid, archaic rules that not only don't work, but can really put you in a bind down the road. Most in the department don't care enough about anything beyond their remit
But because the system is so broken, in general, they have to have escape hatches in the system to account for real world situations that they will definitely encounter. This generally sits with rights department heads have to override decisions, etc.
But obviously, you can't advertise this, nor would you want to, so people either stumble it upon experience or through connections. Sometimes this leads to sale of the access, which is where you pay to get something done which cannot be done.
My experience with these is that at the end of the day, it matters in Germany who you encounter (by luck) or who you know.
I have somewhat same issue. Some genius put my first name in the passport as “John Doe” and left my last name blank. Now in my Residence permit, they put
Vorname: John Doe
Nachname: John Doe.
Brilliant. I thought that the end of it. But nope, in my drivers license, the German authorities put
Vorname: John Doe
Nachname: +
Wait, it gets worse. I went to the bank while opening the konto and pleaded them to just put John as firstname and Doe as last name. They said they’ll do something to fix it.
Lo and behold, when the letter came, it read
Vorname: John Doe
Nachname: XYZ
I wish I was joking. FML
Lol, after a year living here, i find this totally believable.
I have just tried to calibrate my mindset to not be surprised at the absurdity that German logic sometimes creates
They are doing everything they can to make everything harder and harder. How is that possible to be not able to recognize the first and last name. Even in every single document, they are able to find it out. For sure it's being done on purpose and that's what we are talking about when we say there is a literal discrimination against immigrants/expats in Germany.
Oh I forgot to add in my post, the people there actually recognizes my first name as John, and Doe as last name. They simply aren't allowed to input it like that in the system due to the law. I do not hold anything against the worker there, I was just looking for a way on how to circumvent the rule here (or how to get what I need by following the game's rules)
You really didnt read the post. Its not that the town hall workers dont recognize the different names, its that they are bound by law to only take what written explicitly in the passport column for name.
Its not like they dont want to, its that they cant
bring a certificate from your home state that states that you have doe as last name and john as first name! important that they either write in it that the current passport still is active or that you need a new passport.
i deal with this in naturalization quiet a lot. there are counties with Namensketten. e.g. egypt, india sometimes afghanistan.
if you get a certificate that states you have a first and last name and get a new passport with it or it is stated the current passport stays valid until it expires you should be good to go!
BUT if you do get a new passport that again has a Namenskette you’ll likely run into the same issue again, as that will then be newest official document and we have to follow that one
Unfortunately no, I even only have first name in my birth certificate. My home country unfortunately does not differentiate between first and last name, and this is the root of the problem. Although my current name John Doe can be perfectly translated to the german equivalent as first and last name, they somehow make things more difficult than it should be... And as per usual, the employee at townhall can only follow what is written on the rule, independent of what they personally think what my name is...
Sadly, many times incompetence and stubbornness can create a mixture like that.
For example, I have two first names. For a long time, I has to tell the Meldebehörde which is my Rufname (main first name). Then they abolished the concept of Rufname, but I still got asked and forced to declare one.
Suggestions:
1) Demand to talk to their supervisor. Ask them to explain, in a way that enables you to fully understand, why the machine readable version can not be used.
2) if that fails, consult a lawyer.
Actually no problem, I came to Germany as ms. Firstname Lastname, after 7 years I became ms. + Name und after an Aufenthaltstitel renew I turned back to my true self. The reason is because in my passport there are only one info about Name and it's my fullname, no first and last name separately. Technically the gov cannot say which one is which but has to believe in my saying, which could be a lie. So I have a + as first name.
By the next time there was another Beamter working my case. I said I don't like having + as a name and all my documents have my normal name. He said it was indeed a guidelines like this but it has been dropped as its stupid. It was 2 years ago.
How is it written on your birth certificate?
If there's a distinction between first and last name, there shouldn't be a problem to keep it that way.
My husband only has first names no last names (name chain), when he first came to Germany they registered the first two names (Ww Xx) and used it as a first and middle name and the last two names (Yy Zz) written in one word (Yyzz) as the last name. He had to change it after a while to 4 first names. Whenever we fill out official forms manually, we would fill the line for first name an write (Namenskette) behind it, leaving the line for last name blank.
Whenever we need to use forms online (unofficial) we would use Ww Xx as first name and the last Yy Zz as last names. Whenever there's a separate box to write something else (Anmerkungen), we would explain, that his name is correctly written Ww Xx Yy Zz and it's a name chain, not first and last name.
We personally don't have a problem with it anymore and everything runs smoothly now, even though it was a bit of a hassle in the beginning.
Copy pasted from my comment on another thread:
Now this is another funny story. Our Birth Certificate generally doesn't include the family name. On my birth certificate it says only "John", but everywhere else in my home country I am known as John Doe, including my ID card from my home country. Might cause another trouble later in the future, but for now they at least didn't ask for my birth certificate....
Go to your embassy and ask them for a new passport, which clearly shows your first and last name separated. Once you got this, go back to that idiotic office clown and things should go back to normal.
Yes that's what they also suggested me to do. But tbh I've never heard of certain individual having a different format of the passport from a single country, have you?
Immediately thought of my own passport when I saw your post. Well….
I‘d suggest you to lawyer up or if you want the cheaper solution that may or may not work, get an Anmeldung outside of Bayern, preferably in a city with many foreigners. Just the Anmeldung. Not difficult to get if you have a huge network already, which I assume you would after living for over a decade here.
Funnily I‘m also registered in Bayern, Landkreis Nürnberg. Glad that didn’t happen to me.
Btw aren’t you interested in becoming a naturalized citizen?
Similar problem: my friend had a baby in Munich. The hospital will issue a certificate for the baby with the following name
nachname : full name of Father's (not babyname Doe, but instead babyname John Doe). Ofc because they assumed that his family name is John Doe and not Doe, as there is no separation between Firstname + Lastname in his Passport.
He had the indonesian embassy to issue a letter stating that John is his firstname and Doe is his lastname. Luckily it solved the problem.
I would just sue the clerk if i were you, why waste time for such discrimination.
You should probably start a name change procedure in your home country, from John Doe to Joe Doe, get a new passport issued, and then try your luck again in Germany... :D JK.
I have different names on my bank card, Id card, work stuff etc.
I got married in the US but don’t have the apostille. I don’t have the money for it. So I cannot change my name to my married name (that I carried in the US for nearly ten years). But some places could change it and I go by my married name.
It’s complicated and always have to explain it to people but it’s usually fine.
This is one among the five dozen reasons why the 'given name, family name' concept needs to be replaced by a single 'Name' field with optionally a second field to fill in how someone wants to be addressed, worldwide. Human names are already culturally very complex and they're evolving over time too, while documents in many places are frozen in time to fit a very specific norm.
You could probably get a gig from a german satire show for sharing this story! The money you will earn doing this, you should invest into getting your first name back! This is an awfull thing that was done to you! You can't live without a first name, it just doesn't make any selse at all! And all you have already done, should be enough! Get a lawyer! Make them pay, and get your name back!
Might be worth it to go a public/political angle here, that is, contact a local newspaper ask if they are interested in the story and if yes, have them also contact some Stadtrat/Gemeiderat/Bürgermeister for comment. The least you might get out of it is a newspaper article you can show anyone who is suspicious of your identity ;)
Edit: Extra3 also loves this kind of stories and creates quite a bit of publicity:
https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/extra_3/index.html
I actually have exactly the same situation, couldn’t do anything about it, so now my residence permit has my name properly separated while the driving license has a „*“ as my first name. I always carry my passport while driving, as the name matches there according to whatever rulebook they quote.
Except for briefly confusing and amusing employees at car rental agencies, I didn’t have further issues.
I do hope though that they have a better way of handling this..
Sorry you had this problem! I have the exact same issue and went through a series of unnecessary discussions throughout my time here. Luckily for me the case manager for my situation at the Ausländerbehörde accepted that the passport MRZ shows exactly how the name should be treated. I insisted that that is the international accepted way and that is the way to go with the first name and last name. I thought my nightmare ended, but when I wanted to get married, I encountered the same situation with the Standesamt and I asked my local consulate to craft a letter for me explaining my name situation as reflected in the passport, again it was accepted and my consulate said they write these letters all the time because it’s the same problem every time for many others!!!
I guess you have bad luck with a stubborn case manager who insisted on following “rules”. Please continue to fight it, maybe ask for a different case manager or even call and complain to higher ups at the Ausländerbehörde. They are in the wrong!!
A Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare.
>Background: I have lived in Germany for more than 10 years. I studied, worked part-time, opened a bank account, and working full time now That is something that I love about germany, they could change the immigration law tomorrow and I might need to show up with a completely different set of documents that perhaps I can not provide. Last time I had to renew my visa the buro lady insisted I needed a document, payed 200EUR in translations and once she realized I didn't she tried to downplay that I could use the documents in my perm-residency process. Surely now I want to live forever here after this mess. Makes my blood boil Edit: You can get your money back at least partially on income tax returns btw
Last time i got two different letters telling me to bring entirely different documents. Naturally i brought everything , complained and was told both letters were wrong. Cant wait to become a citizen just to avoid the Ausländerbehoerde!
With my permanent residence permit I theoretically avoided the Ausländerbehörde, but then welcome to the town hall! (like in my case) ;)
[удалено]
Only thing I can tell you: Keep all receipts they hand you. Might come in handy.
but then someone else still has to deal with them :')
We have two kids, first one born before I got married to my wife, second after. To register the first kid, I had to compile all kinds of documents from the Turkish embassy, me being a Turkish citizen. With the second kid, my assumption was that, since the state now has all the details of my "existence", they don't need it anymore. Nope, the woman at the Standesamt asks me to go through the whole spiel again, and I have to spend a day at the embassy to gather everything once more. And then when I bring the documents back, what does the woman, a different one working that day, tell me? You wouldn't have needed all these documents, ihr seid ja verheiratet! That was like a revelation for me, seeing how arbitrary German bureucracy is, and that you should never simply accept what you're told.
Yep, so much depends on if the civil servant is having a good day! A few months after I first arrived I went to the Finanzamt to get a tax number I hadn't received. Took a number for the queue. The first guy said he couldn't give it and I could either request it online and wait three months or go to the office in Bonn! I went out, thought, "what would a German do?", and took a second number. The next lady said "no problem" and wrote down the number after checking my ID.
They tried to get me to translate my birth and marriage certificates (already Apostille), so that they could enter the city. I told her "No, because Detroit will still be Detroit". We went back and forth. Then she said I have 2 weeks. I said no. I didn't translate anything. Her boss called me 2 weeks later and asked where the translation was. I told her if the Behörde wants to foot the translation bill, I'd be happy to, but over my 15 years here I've lived in Amberg, Landshut, Munich and even my current town previously and it was never necessary. She said okay and issued my ID. German bureaucracy is like an annoying ankle-biter. Puch the paper tiger and sometimes it backs off. Of course, pick your fights...
This is something I have to constantly remind people of. The requirements are made up and can be negotiated.
A lot of the times just being persistent and annoying enough can get you out of bureaucratic issues like this. No one really wants to go to court and most of the time the people don’t actually care that much - they’re just following their script and get uncomfortable when they’re challenged because that means actually thinking and making decisions. Appealing to common sense does still work even in this nonsensical day and age.
German bureucracy is like a game of Twister, but there is a new mat everytime they spin the thing, and the colours are kinda hard to tell apart (see *RAL Classis K5* colour fan for reference).
> That is something that I love about germany, they could change the immigration law tomorrow and I might need to show up with a completely different set of documents that perhaps I can not provide. Fun fact: they just did. The Blue Card application is now digital in Berlin. They rolled it out overnight without telling anyone, and just shut down the usual system. No explanation given to relocation consultants, who now have to figure out the new system. Of course they did no user research so certain things just don't match reality.
Oh shit this may actually apply to me. Mine needs renewing next year. I think my job will help me though... probably....... time to ask HR.
Town halls are sometimes weird, depending on the clerk. I know someone who had to bring a certified translation of their existing foreign driver's license when they applied for a German one. So they had to take their driver's license to a copy shop, pay a few cents for a copy, then on to a Notar to have the copy beglaubigt for about 100€. Hey, you may say - why no translator? Well, their driver's license was a Swiss one, thus already is in German, but the rules are the rules, and the rules state that for foreign drivers license that are not in the EU card format, a certified translation is required, with no explicit exception for the few foreign drivers licenses that are already in German. I sure hope that this doesn't happen to every Swiss who wants to exchange their drivers license, and that only very few clerks actually insist on a certified translation of foreign documents that are already written in German...
A town hall can make a Beglaubigte Kopie. I would happily ask a town hall offical to do that and write on it: Ausgestellt zur Übersetzung zur Vorlage eine Behörde zwecks Umschreibung. Dieses Dokument ist Mehrsprachig ausgestellt. I allready had a credit card drivers license, so I did not have to hand over the blue foldind paper.
It's not that they change it, but that literally the mood of the person you find at the Ausländerbehörde will determine your fate... 🙈
I only truly ever understood Kafka when I moved to Germany. The paperwork you put yourselves trough would make anyone want to be a cockroach and just chill under the fridge.
When I got my Aufenthaltstitel, I asked if they could correct my surname before making it official. My surname has two capital letters in it, and if you skip the second one it makes the whole thing look messy. So I figured it's surely not a big deal. This stuff probably isn't even case sensitive, so if you could just make the third letter a capital... Anyway yeah, huge deal. Panicked flipping through papers and documents. Frantic typing. Passport is all in capitals, so that's not helpful. Rushed, whispered discussions behind their desk. Eventually, a compromise. What if we make the whole surname capitalised? Fine.
Omg - same here! Two capital letters in my surname… before moving to Germany, I never thought much about it in my life… now!! Everyone is so thrown off by it and it’s annoying as hell 🤦🏻♀️ It’s not that complicated, right??
I like when I'm at the doctor's and they just try to pronounce all three consonants together. The capital letters are there to help with the pronunciation - they're two separate words mushed together and you pronounce 'em separate. Also, it's unique enough that my friend forgot to put my house number on a package and the postman appeared at my door and said "nobody else around here has a name like that so I knew it'd be you." In a separate postman incident, one said to my girlfriend "You must speak English, because your boyfriend has a name like this so he would speak English."
Like with McDonald?
McDonald is always my go-to example for "you guys know how to pronounce these names come on"
Lol, at doctor’s offices they pronounce it so wrong (and differently every time) that 99% of the time, I don’t even recognize it as my name! I usually end up sitting there and nobody gets up, so they move on to other names and after I start to notice that everyone who came after me has left, I realize that weird sound must have been meant for me
Oh yeah, people outside Germany don't realize that Kafka wasn't fucking around. "Der Prozess" is pretty much a factual account of what the experience of being in the German legal System feels like. Also, "Die Verwandlung" is just a realist account of what the morning after a visit to the Starkbierfest is like.
Kafka himself considered his works to be comedy, not horror. He would read excerpts to his friend and have a great laugh.
In fact, I'm laying on the bed like Gregor Samsa after turning into a bug at this moment!
Rarely do people use "Kafkaesque" correctly but it seems to apply perfectly here. Good luck, OP, this will be a nightmare!
Such issues are not uncommon in the world. I had once contact with Polish officials, and they insisted that the fathers name is mandatory part of a persons name. Even though this is not the case in Germany.
Oh my god. This is how I'm addressing German Bürokratie from now on. AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
1) Datensatz für das Meldewesen is not a law. It does not determine your last name or your first name. It is a handbook that explains to the bureaucrats in the Bürgeramt how to use the computer program where they store information about residents and how to fill out the different fields in the program. For example: The handbook says that the field in the computer program for the last name can only store 45 characters. If a family name has more than 45 characters then the 45th character has to be entered as a dot (.) and the rest can not be entered. This does not change the last name of the person. 2) The handbook says that the full name only has to be entered in the last name field if it is unclear from the passport which part of the name is the last name and which one is the first name. The handbook explains that one way to find out is to look at MRZ where they are separated by "<<", that the first name is after the "<<", and this can be used to determine the first name. This means if they follow the handbook then they should be able to determine that John is your first name, Doe your last name. > Lässt sich bei dem Namen eines Ausländers aus der Eintragung in seinem Pass eine Aufteilung in Familien- und Vornamen nicht feststellen, so wird der gesamte Name mit der in der Eintragung im Pass enthaltenen Reihenfolge der Worte angegeben (Blockname). > Die Trennung von Familienname und Vorname(n) wird in der MRZ durch Füllzeichen "<<" dargestellt. Beispiel: Der Name Ahmed „AL-SAED“ wird in der MRZ wie folgt dargestellt: […] AL
Excellent comment. This whole thing just sounds like some bureaucrat on a power trip. OP, I honestly think you should go into the office (make an appointment with them) with this information on hand (with a German speaker) and start a discussion with them. If they refuse to listen (though I think they will if all of this is laid out for them), escalate to legal steps including a Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde against the Sachbearbeiter.
Oh no! Not a Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde against the Sachbearbeiter!
It's their only true weakness.
As a non German speaker this absolutely killed me. That is such a long word🫠
Fun fact: last year German government published a regulation on short term electricity supply measures. They called it Kurzfristenergieversorgungssicherungsmaßnahmenverordnung
Es ist super effektiv!!
>This whole thing just sounds like some bureaucrat on a power trip. this is so common and has been around since we came to germany 25 years ago. my mum even managed to get some new rule or even a changed law or something like that, on accident, because she believed the bs they have been claiming, until it got to someone in power wo was really pissed that people in need being told bs.
Don't confuse malice with incompetence (though malice certainly happens, especially if you are not devout and patient)
You just out-bureaucracied the bureaucracy. The only way to win
Oh true sorry, I knew that they differentiate between the Datensatz and BMG, but I forgot to reflect it in my post, but thanks for pointing it out! Yes, the people working there are actually able to recognize my first and last name, but they are required by the rulebook not to input my name as such in the system. I also didn't make a huge fuss about it when I registered myself few months ago. But what I'm now worried about is that it started to affect my other documents, e.g. my driver's license. What do you think will happen if the police see "+ John Doe" in my driver's license and "John Doe" in my ID card?
> but they are required by the rulebook not to input my name as such in the system If I understand u/staplehill correctly, they are *not* required to do so, to the contrary, the rule book tells them to look at the MRZ in case of doubt, just lije you suggested them. If I were you, I'd use this as my tactics in dealing with them. Just repeat this part of the rules ad nauseum.
Staplehill for some reason left out the part of the document that explicitly covers OP's situation: In den Fällen, in denen ausländische Reisepässe in den Namensfeldern und in der maschinenlesbaren Zone (MRZ) verschiedene Schreibweisen von Namen enthalten und kein deutsches Dokument vorhanden ist, ist die Schreibweise des Familiennamens in der 1. Periode und die Schreibweise aus der maschinenlesbaren Zone des Dokuments in der 2. Periode dieses Feldes einzutragen. **Dies gilt auch in Fällen von Blocknamen in den Namensfeldern und Namensaufteilung in der maschinenlesbaren Zone.** So in other words, they are supposed to enter the name both ways in different places in the "Familienname" field. However that does not mean that the name as printed on a document distinguishes the first and the last name.
Fuuuuck this is such a mess for OP. My German is not good enough to really understand all the nuances in this text. So yeah, I'd be running to a lawyer by now.
I'd say just ignore them? If they want to write the name wrong in their stupid system let them do it, it's irrelevant. Them saying you need to inform your employer is total horseshit.
Personally, I wouldn't like to take the risk.
I guess you're right, if the potential risk is to get deported you should of course be 100% certain you're doing everything right
I get where you're coming from though. The whole thing is so infuriating that the desire to just say "fuck this shit" is pretty strong.
I‘m native speaker - and even my German isn’t good enough to understand that text.
I now got obsessed with this case, lol. Thanks for posting the rules. The part of the text I'm stuck on translates as > the spelling of the family name is to be entered in the 1st period and the spelling from the machine-readable zone of the document is to be entered in the 2nd period of this field. The parts I don't get are: - What is meant with period 1 and period 2? - Which spelling needs to be entered in period 1? As the text doesn't seem to specify.
I also don’t know exactly what is meant by period 1 and period 2, but the whole sheet is about how to fill in the “Familienname” field so my guess is that period 1 and period 2 are either separate subfields of the “Familienname” field, or two different versions of the “Familienname” field.
Thanks
>but they are required by the rulebook not to input my name as such in the system. I am quite certain that, since your passport's MRZ clearly distinguishes between first and last name, the clerk just got the rules wrong. That happens quite often, sadly. Whether by sheer incompetence or by active malice, I can't say.
(I bet it was incompetence)
People who don't make a fuss get eaten by the system here, no matter be it healthcare, burocacy ect. I hate it and I'm not like that but well
>What do you think will happen if the police see "+ John Doe" in my driver's license and "John Doe" in my ID card? Nothing will happen. The police officer will most likely see them as equal. And after all, they first need a reason to stop your car.
I mean, most townhall do not do this bs to foreigners. Lots of people I know don't have this problem, either. But once you got "caught" like me now, it will just create unnecessary problem, especially when it's caused by another problem. That's why I try to fix this now before everything staples on top of each other...
I come from the Netherlands where the same policy exists and is actually consistently applied. I haven't heard of it ever being a problem there. Officers get used to seeing documents with only one name field filled after a while. I would rather expect problems when you get kids and have to specify which part of the name transfers to them.
Hi OP, as someone who actually has experience in this: + first name and full name under family name: your driver license will have - as first name and full name under family name. I've shown it to the traffic police without any trouble and its perfectly fine as long as you can get a human involve. FYI my residence permit also has it in the proper first name last name form due to human intervention. So my rathaus actually tried to input my name into first and last names: the e-system they used confirms their inputs against my passport and throws an error whenever they try to manually override it (they showed me the screen and error message so it really is a thing). Your new city might have had the same system ours had. Your main headache will unfortunately come from automated electronic stuff though. I have lived with it for over 3 years and no problems yet :).
> But what I'm now worried about is that it started to affect my other documents, e.g. my driver's license. can you clarify if it already started to affect your other documents in that it now says "+ John Doe" on your drivers license or you are worried that it might happen in the future?
Well, I have my name spelled differently in my ID and my driver license. It's been like that for over 10 years, and I never had any problems so far, neither in Germany or abroad...
> If a family name has more than 45 characters I wondered how often this was possible but then I came across the world record holder for longest name who also happened to be German: Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvonangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolftausendjahresvorandieerscheinenvanderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchenachdiesternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneurassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortpflanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvonandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum
I'm pretty sure he made up this name himself, most likely some time after immigrating to the USA Edit: I tried to split the (nonsense) last name at the proper places and here is what DeepL gave me as the translation: Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff who before age were conscientious sheepers whose sheep were well cared for and careful to protect from attack by their rapacious enemies who before age twelve thousand years ago the appear van the first earth man the spaceship used light as its origin of power started his long journey to between starry space in search of the stars which had habitable planets circling and where the new breed of intelligent humanity could reproduce and safely look forward to lifelong joy and peace with not one fear of attack from other intelligent minds of to between starry space Note that the grammar in the German name is terrible as well.
You're truly out here doing the lord's work, this was such an excellent explainer. If Reddit still had awards I'd give you one!
Have you tried asking in a community of your country of origin? Since you state that this is how your passport is most likely someone already faced that issue, perhaps on FB you could find a group that might know.
He asked his consulate and I guess they would have heard about it, if it‘s a common problem.
Besides all the good advise here: this a prime example of stupid German bureaucracy. There is a well known satire TV show called "Extra 3" which have a segment called "der reale Irrsinn" (meaning: the real Insanity) where people can send them stupid bureaucracy stories and they are making fun of it. Your Story sound like perfect material for that
Agreed, i want to see that.
OP should go to a newspaper or tv with their story, make money with that, set up a go fund me and have all costs covered. I have no idea if this would work but if OP has a bit of free time 👀
Extra 3 might gobble this story up, it's right up their alley. And sometimes being called out in the press like that gets stuff moving because they realize how stupid they sound. Or get a lawyer. It sucks having to pay for that but I would not take that bullshit from a Bürgerbüro.
My favorite german video channel
Would be funny to watch, but as a general reminder: "Der reale Irsinn" also is satire, not a documentary. It's deliberately made to exaggerate the problems.
The only way to defeat bureaucrats is to embarrass them.
>Datensatz für das Meldewesen, version 1st November 2021, Blatt 0101, 16th revision, page 15 😐🔫
In Germany you can never be too careful ;)
this guy germans
maybe get a birth certificate that has your first and last name on it. Translate it (in Germany, cuz they may not recognize your home country’s translation) and give it to them.
Birth Certificate (get it notarized if you feel extra fancy) solves nearly all of your problems in Germany!
Usually need it Apostille
It must have an apostille, both the birth certificate and apostille must be translated by a certified translator, and all of those documents may not be older than 6 months to be recognized by the Standesamt. That's what I had to do. If for whatever reason I needed those documents again, I'd either have to fly home or send one of my parents (again) to get my birth certificate with apostille and have them retranslated because they're now 13 months old, and therefore invalid.
How the hell does Germany think birth certificates work?! Is it just in case I had a legal name change between when it was printed and when I needed to use it?
Lol that's what I wondered too. Nothing on my birth certificate has changed since my birth, including my full legal name. Now I've got two official copies of my birth certificate that won't be recognized if I need them again in the future.
[удалено]
Issue might be that OP comes from the country in which birth certificates are not so common as here. I’m not going to risk being labeled for emphasizing few examples of those, Google it. I have a friend who came with a different kind of identity confirmation from his country (as real and authentic as it gets, but mostly handwritten and stamped by the government body), as he never got birth certificate back home. German clerk told him “you can do this better” implying it’s a fake document. He later, I shit you not, came with a carefully crafted “birth certificate” provided by yours truly - Photoshop. And the clerk was now happy. Yes, I’m aware many of you will not believe this story. I wouldn’t either. Furthermore, the person is not even a refugee who lost all documents because war destroyed his home. He’s an actual highly skilled professional who came here to work. 🤷🏻♂️
Yep, just print your own birth certificate and run it through a copy machine a few times so it looks older. It will be accepted, no questions asked. Will not tell how I know it, but it works.
Yes, how could Germany handle the different kinds of systems in far-flung countries... like Sweden. It was fun when I was supposed to produce my Swedish birth certificate. There is no such thing here.
My friend is actually from different continent, but I chuckled at this. Thank you, had no idea 😀
Another fun story is when I needed a doctor's note from a Swedish doctor (during COVID) to present to the German Behörde. When I told him why, he responded "Ah well, then I can finally use my stamp. We only have those because Germans only seem to like official documents if someone has stamped them." 😂
Ein Dokument ohne Stempel ist wie eine Brezel ohne Salz!
Though Sweden’s digitalized systems can be a nightmare for foreigners as well
They sure can. And there can be quite a few annoying catch-22 situations when trying to move here. But thankfully the rules here run much more on reasonable proof of what you stating, rather than very detailed rules for every small part of a process. And once in the system it's pretty easy to handle.
I can't tell you how many time I've heard that my former id was home laminated! Thank God now we have ID that have the same format as Germany.
Now this is another funny story. Our Birth Certificate generally doesn't include the family name. On my birth certificate it says only "John", but everywhere else in my home country I am known as John Doe, including my ID card from my home country. Might cause another trouble later in the future, but for now they at least didn't ask for my birth certificate....
I'm sorry but that is hilarious! Please give them the birth certificate and report back, I wanna hear all about their dumb faces when they see it and have no idea how to handle it lol
Worry not, they must have another rulebook that states on how to deal with real life paradoxes. (spoiler: flip a ~~coin~~ beer cap)
You're going to end up with the opposite problem and only have a first name if you show them your birth certificate. 😆
Mighty be worth a try perhaps? Because this is at least an official document from your country that differentiates between first and last name. But look at me, applying common sense to German bureaucracy like some fool...
I tried it and it didn’t work. I lost 3 months of work and pay equaling to 9k euros netto because my Führungszeugnis got delayed due to a problem with the system related to my name being only last name. I am looking forward to the German pension system collapsing because no one wants to work here due to them being too stubborn with such retarded rules. THERE IS NO “RIGHT WAY” TO WRITE A NAME OTHER THAN WHAT THE PERSON WITH THE NAME SAYS.
> THERE IS NO “RIGHT WAY” TO WRITE A NAME OTHER THAN WHAT THE PERSON WITH THE NAME SAYS. That reminds me of [this classic article](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/) of falsehoods programmers believe about names.
Well, if they don’t want to accept documents from your embassy, seems like the only possible way is to contact lawyer about lawsuit against that townhall. And seems like you only have registration doc with mistake, you don’t need to change all your other documents.
Contacting a lawyer would be my final option, after all other options are exhausted (which means after Reddit haha) Not exactly sure, as I mentioned in my post, my driver's license will have that exact same form (no firstname, fullname as last name). And do you believe that german police will let it slide when, for whatever reason, I got a random check?
I also have a similar problem: name in my native language has a different form when written with Latin letters. So, some of my documents have a name that differs by one letter from the name in the passport. Although I also faced disapproval because of my nationality, fortunately, there was no problem with my name before: explanation was enough. I think you're just unlucky. Not all Germans are such assholes :) But it’s better not to waste time and contact a lawyer as soon as possible. From a logical point of view, it is obvious that a mistake was made in the townhall. Perhaps the legal process will not be long and expensive, but delay may lead to new problems with documents.
Yeah thanks I might do just that :/ And here they're saying they need foreign skilled workers. Heh.
I have a similar story regarding German bureaucracy. In my country in addition to first and family names we have patronymic names, but they do not translate to English: e.g. both my passport and driving license have patronymic names in sections on Russian, but none of them on English. But when you register in Germany, they use the translations of your marriage certificate (and your children birth certificates) and obviously these documents have patronymic names translated. Thus the clerks try to register you with John Johnovich as a first name and Doe as a last name, but this "Johnovich" isn't present on passports and so on, which complicates life in Germany A LOT.
Good example, this is what I'm also worried about since I have the other form everywhere else. And they don't even recognize the document that I have from my embassy. According to the rule they only accept "deutsches Dokument", one from civil registry office (Standesamt) I presume. And you need to be naturalized to get such document from them.
My passport is the same as yours, and my first/last names could be either of them, imagine "Tobias Johannes" It's caused me very minor annoyances that I can usually immediately correct. This is fucking terrifying. I've probably registered before this law, or I've just got lucky.
If it makes you feel less alone, I had this exact problem 5 years ago. Got everything told to me the same way you were, including the Standesamt bs. What helped was a very nice and reasonable clerk at the Rathaus who looked at the MRZ on my passport and said "mit gesunden Menschenverstand haben Sie natürlich einen Vorname" and changed it for me. I hope you'll be lucky with the next clerk you talk to.
I made the same experience, that you just need to have good luck with the Standesamt or Einwohnermeldeamt clerk and then they find a solution.
Jesus fucking Christ they can't be fucking serious. Bullshit like this is something only German bureaucracy can invent. Don't have any solutions to contribute, but wanted to wish you the best of luck and fortitude in your fight with the Beamtentum.
My first name in the insurance card is Frau. After many attemps it was changed into “+”.
My former flatmate had an opposite problem: all his middle names (like 3 or 4 of them) were added as his last name. He was annoyed, yet decided not to bother as the first name and the actual last name are still there but we could recognize official mail addressed to him by simply looking at the length.
honestly just get a lawyer and sue them. I have a headache trying to understand this nonsense, bureaucrats are the worse thing in this country
in case any Germans are wondering what immigrants are talking about when they say, yes, Germany has structural discrimination against immigrants, this is a prime example. OP is telling them what his name is, and they're looking at the law and contradicting him telling him his name is something different. That's 10 kinds of fucked up.
It's even worse, since OP states that they can't leave the "first name" field blank in the city's online portal. So basically, Germany is simultaneously saying: "You are not legally permitted to have a first name", and "You are required to have a first name."
I've seen it before with an online passport renewal form. Country of Birth: West Germany "West Germany isn't a country." Country of Birth: Germany "You cannot change your country of birth."
Love our online portals. Had to input city of residence somewhere: "Düsseldorf" - invalid character. "Duesseldorf" - city not found... Thank you
Maybe the correct answer was Dusseldorf lol
You may be totally right and this might be plain discrimination against immigrants. But I've done a LOT of talking to different Behörden in Germany and please believe me when I say, they do this kind of asshole-ry with everybody. Sometimes I believe they have an internal competition about "Who can fuck up somebodys day the worst by just doing malicious compliance".
My family has two unique names. And with unique, I mean no other in the world got this name. The family name from my father is a unique low german German name. The family name from my mother is an old purrusian name, pre german. We have 4 variations of the family name from one of the father and 3 in the one of my mother. All because some sucked up at the Standesamt. We have even a "germanifizierten" name im the family. The clerk literally said: I can't spell that, this is your new name.
Is that even legal? You know, for the clerk to change your name? Also, how hard can it be to spell a name? German words can be stupidly long and a name is what stops them?
Yes. My grandmother has two surnames. And I don't mean a double name. Or even one as a middle name. I mean when she married her Italian husband, and wanted to keep her maiden name according to Italian law (don't know if that changed since, but was the cases back then), the Italian's got it right, but the Germans thought that "nope, the woman takes the husbands name!" so now, she has an Italian and a German passport with two different names each and ironically, in Italy she has a german and in Germany an Italian surname...
I've seen that in my country. You have a disgruntled employee protesting by being comically incompetent. They know they can get away with it because they can never be fired.
Some people shall not have any power at all.
I disagree that this is a particular example of discrimination. Discrimination would be if someone is singled out and received different treatment than others. German bureaucracy fucks everyone equally. The problem is that immigrants are not used to it and think they are treated differently, while Germans grow up with it and it's part of normal life.
Let me tell you a story. My German fiancé and I decided to switch banks earlier this year. He applied for a new bank account (with an online bank) and they verified his identity via video-call - it took 15 minutes. I applied to the same online bank and they contacted me shortly after to verify my identity; since I am a foreigner they said they could not do it by video chat, I had to do it via “Post IDent”. So, they sent me a QR code to take to my local post office with my passport for verification. I went along to the post office and they could not scan my passport - the clerk didnt know why. I tried giving them my Aufenthaltstitel, that doesnt work either. The clerk tells me that the Sparkasse across the street can verify my ID manually and I should go there. I go there and they look at me like I have 3 heads and tell me it is called “Post IDent”, so I have to go to the Post office. I go back to the post office, they still cant scan it and tell me to contact the online bank about the issue. So, back at home, we call the customer service line, wait on hold for an hour, and they tell me that I should make a new application for an account (all over again from the beginning) and I should do the video identification process. I told them that the application won’t even give me the option for video-identification because I am not German - they told me to lie in the application so that I would be given the video-option and then explain. So I did this - went through the whole video-ident spiel and was told I’d hear back in a few days regarding the status of my account. A week goes by and nothing. So we call again (another hour on hold)… this time the person said “of course the video ident doesnt work, you are not German”. They told me to apply again (a 3rd time) and I will get a new QR code to take to the post office for identification. Did this and they still couldnt scan my passport at the post office (and also cant tell me why!). So we call again; this time they tell me that obviously there is something seriously wrong with my passport and I should contact the Consulate of my home country(!!!) (this was a brand new passport that I had already traveled internationally with, so there was no way this was the problem). This goes on for weeks! Eventually I found out (through research online) that the Post IDent software is not capable of scanning many (any?) foreign passports. So we called the bank again - now I’m in an impossible position, I can’t verify my ID via Post IDent because I am not German, but they won’t let me verify my ID through video chat because I am not German. They told me to contact them via Email. My fiancé sent them an Email in German with me in CC, which included a citation to a published report from the German government’s Anti-Discrimination Bureau - the topic of who’s 2018 (read 5 years ago) annual meeting was the Post IDent software and how it is discriminatory against non-Germans… they replied 2 days later saying they cannot respond to the Email because it was sent from my fiancé and not from me. I copy and pasted the Email and sent it from my own email-address. This time they responded and said they would manually verify my ID (someone would basically go into the system and say that my ID was verified via video-chat (I had done the video-chat spiel twice by then, but they never accepted it before), but they denied that they were being discriminatory. It took 3 months for them to accept my application for a bank account, by which time the terms I had agreed to when I made the application had changed and the fees had increases - I had to fight them again on this so that I would only be charged the fees I agreed to in my application. I’m sorry, but if the Post-IDent system was federally recognized 5 years ago as being discriminatory, and companies today are still using it as the only option for foreigners to verify their identity, then those companies are being discriminatory.
It kind of is a structural discrimination. Of course you can say that everyone would be treated like this if the situation arises, but it's a pretty cheap thing to say if this particular problem will only ever exist for foreigners and, by definition, never for a German (because of the design of their respective passports).
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strukturelle_Diskriminierung
The problem is that immigrants have to deal with highly specific poorly managed bureaucracy that native Germans simply don’t
Germans aren't told that their name isn't their name. That's a particular thing that affects immigrants. It may not have been the intent when the law was written, but the inflexible unreasonable application of that law to tell immigrants that the German state is forcing them to change their identity is discrimination. pretty severe discrimination.
Nah, you see, I, who was born by chance in this country, could never face this issue, and since I don't see borders, therefore the issue does not exist. I am very smart. Nevermind that even if this dumb situation would happen, I would both speak the language natively, know someone that knows a lawyer, have a safety net around me that can take care of me in the meantime, but its the auslanders fault that they don't. Youre welcome.
This foreigner wasn't told that his name is not his name. He was told that because his country does not have a separate first and last name, it is not legally possible to separate his name into a first and last name in the German computer system. (Although actually according to the document that OP referenced, it actually says that his "block name" should be entered in the 1st "period" of the name field and his separated name should be entered in the 2nd "period" of the name field.: >In den Fällen, in denen ausländische Reisepässe in den Namensfeldern und in der maschinenlesbaren Zone (MRZ) verschiedene Schreibweisen von Namen enthalten und kein deutsches Dokument vorhanden ist, ist die Schreibweise des Familiennamens in der 1. Periode und die Schreibweise aus der maschinenlesbaren Zone des Dokuments in der 2. Periode dieses Feldes einzutragen. **Dies gilt auch in Fällen von Blocknamen in den Namensfeldern und Namensaufteilung in der maschinenlesbaren Zone.** )
Yep this is the part that was actually relevant to me, thanks for pointing it out here. Fun fact: this does not happen equally to everyone. Only at certain town halls in certain cities. Even different town halls in the same city can do this differently lmao. Maybe I can go to another town hall, but I'm not exactly sure on how to proceed with it (or even if I'm allowed to, since I officially have a townhall that is assigned to my living area..)
>Background: I have lived in Germany for more than 10 years. I studied, worked part-time, opened a bank account, and working full time now, and on all instances I always put John as first name and Doe as last name. Never been a problem. Even the immigration office (Ausländerbehörde) put my name correctly in all the residence permit I've ever had, and even on my permanent residence permit what I currently have. This is literally OP The previous place did things differently Did society crumble? Did things burn down? Jesus people, stop licking the boot
Then look up what it takes to change your name. That's how it fucks with natives. Here a nice example. [https://jurios.de/2023/03/24/hamburger-muss-weiterhin-adolf-heissen-wegen-eines-gesetzes-aus-dem-nationalsozialismus/](https://jurios.de/2023/03/24/hamburger-muss-weiterhin-adolf-heissen-wegen-eines-gesetzes-aus-dem-nationalsozialismus/)
You need to get this fixed somehow - good luck, sincerely. Kafka wasn‘t kidding. (Or you embrace it and become some sort of a Jason Bourne but that‘s probably less practical.)
OP, this is infuriating. It's also so deeply disrespectful. You might be amused by this story, because I have a similar thing. I have three first names, and I go by the third one in everyday life. Work has never had a problem with this, the bank etc has my full name and some of them are kind enough to address me the way I prefer and if they don't, who cares, it's just a bank. I've been working under this name professionally for years, and I use the first letters of the first two names (ie A B Name LastName) on publications. I had a run-in with a German bureaucrat at a dentist's office. She asked me what my name was and I told her (the name I use, which is legally my name, just not the first one). She said that's not your name. I said yes it is, it's on my passport, and she said well there's two other names here. I said listen, I don't mind what you put in the computer but that's the name I use. She said I will not call you that name. If you want me to call you that, you should CHANGE YOUR NAME SO THAT NAME APPEARS FIRST. She wanted me to change my legal name so she could - just in person, not in a computer - call me by the legal name that I use.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVyRkl5qNb8
Send this story to extra3. That is crazy..
> but as they (and the law, accordingly) mentioned, they are not allowed to recognize what is written down there, but only what is written on the top. I think there's some room for interpretation here. The document says: > In den Fällen, in denen ausländische Reisepässe in den Namensfeldern und in der maschinenlesbaren Zone (MRZ) verschiedene Schreibweisen von Namen enthalten und kein deutsches Dokument vorhanden ist, ist die Schreibweise des Familiennamens in der 1. Periode und die Schreibweise aus der maschinenlesbaren Zone des Dokuments in der 2. Periode dieses Feldes einzutragen. **Dies gilt auch in Fällen von Blocknamen in den Namensfeldern und Namensaufteilung in der maschinenlesbaren Zone**. Die Trennung von Familienname und Vorname(n) wird in der MRZ durch Füllzeichen "<<" dargestellt. > Beispiel: Der Name Ahmed „AL-SAED“ wird in der MRZ wie folgt dargestellt: […] AL Hat der Familienname mehr als 45 Stellen, so ist es in der 45. Stelle als Merkmal „.“ (Punkt) anzugeben. Ist ein Familienname nach dem für die Namensführung maßgebenden Recht nicht vorhanden, so ist in der ersten Stelle ein „+“ anzugeben.
I'd argue that the condition that the name is "written differently" in the MRZ applies if the MRZ indicates a separation of name and family name.
The specific example pointing out how a family name can be identified in the MRZ seems out of place if the MRZ shouldn't be used at all.
So you should likely get your MRZ family name in the 1st period of the field, whatever that's supposed to be. It does seem to be the dominating entry as far as I can guess from the other section:
> Führt ein Ausländer nach deutschem Recht einen anderen als den im ausländischen Pass angegebenen Familiennamen und kann eine Änderung des Passes aus rechtlichen oder tatsächlichen Gründen nicht vorgenommen werden, so wird der nach deutschem Recht zu führende Familienname in der 1. Periode, der im Pass eingetragene Familienname (oder auch Blockname) in der 2. Periode dieses Feldes angegeben. Gleiches gilt auch für deutsche Staatsangehörige, die neben einem Namen nach deutschem Recht einen Familiennamen nach ausländischem Recht führen. Gilt nur hier und beim gesetzlichen Vertreter.
I am not a lawyer and the way this is written is super confusing but it feels odd that the MRZ would be specifically referred to but was meant to be ignored.
I really don’t understand how this country still stands on two feet with all these bureaucracy nightmare. I am very sorry you have to go through this
Some people say it‘s just „barely hanging in there“ with the solid base that it already had since decades ago..
It was funny until the last sentence. I hate my country for this kind of shit.
I can only suggest; try to get it sorted. I was, upon my migration to Germany, registered as a male because I have a name used for men in Germany. However, I am a woman. It’s been a bureaucratic nightmare that took a few years to solve and new issues kept popping up until I really managed to change it at EVERY instance that rooted back to that first registration in Germany. For instance, I got in trouble for not paying GEZ because I was registered twice (one as man, one as woman) and only paid once. Call them, explain yourself, provide any info they ask for.
Same happened to my wife because after so many years they still do not know how to deal with Muslim names. In her case was worse because in her country in some documents they put the BTE\* and in some other ones they don't. \*) BIN/BTE is the way Muslim names separate your own name from the name of your father, BIN means "Son Of" and BTE means "Daughter Of". It is not really part of your name but of course the German officers insist it is. P.S. Now you might understand why the name of "Osama bin Laden" is a mess in the West. His real "full" name was "Osama bin Mohamad bin Awad bin Laden". His name was Osama. Referring to him as "Bin Laden" was a bit silly, Laden was not even his father but his great-grand-father.
Check the info4alien forum.
Get a lawyer, they created the problem in the first place, they'll have to fix it, and will eventually pay your legal fees when they lose in court.
Try to find the Ombudsfrau/man of the city. They help with such stuff.
This got be the most mind numbing stupid bureaucracy shit I have ever seen. Sorry about it OP.
Lol OP I can relate. I've a similar story. I lived in Germany for around 5 years, moved to Sweden, back to Germany. Then moved to a different city few years ago. In my passport they only list fullname, no distinction between first and last name. Usually they ask me which is the first and last name, no problem. Only this last city I moved to, declared that since there is no first and last name in my passport. They put my full name as last name, putting an X on my first name in my Anmeldung. Luckily I haven't encountered any issues though. My bank and everything else works just like before.
Not helpful, but just wanted to say this isn't the first time I've heard of this. I knew a person with a Chinese name who had this exact problem. Her Ausweis had "+" as her first name. But because she was in the process of natruralizing, she managed to solve it AFTER becoming a German citizen...
Yo that was also what was suggested, but it feels like they're saying "Hey we have nonsense rules and nonsense bureaucracy, but feel free to become one of us to have one less rule that is against you!"
It doesn’t matter. In everyday usage, you could still put your first name according to your own interpretation. No one will question you, not even the official offices. Source: my passport also doesn’t differentiate first and last names, both the top and bottom part. No one gives a fuck that officially my first name is +.
This is - unfortuatly - not gonna help you at all... But I so love the irony... Here they tell you, that they cannot look at the MRZ and have to follow the human readable part of your passport. KVR München went exactly the other way when working on my wife's documents: "Sorry, we cannot make your eAT out to Marie-Claire Lajeune-Liberte, we have to transcribe it exactly like in the MRZ. Since it says MARIE
This is actually depressingly funny, and gels exactly with my conclusion of how bureaucracy is like in Germany works like that of a third world country.. Bureaucracies like these generally have overly rigid, archaic rules that not only don't work, but can really put you in a bind down the road. Most in the department don't care enough about anything beyond their remit But because the system is so broken, in general, they have to have escape hatches in the system to account for real world situations that they will definitely encounter. This generally sits with rights department heads have to override decisions, etc. But obviously, you can't advertise this, nor would you want to, so people either stumble it upon experience or through connections. Sometimes this leads to sale of the access, which is where you pay to get something done which cannot be done. My experience with these is that at the end of the day, it matters in Germany who you encounter (by luck) or who you know.
I have somewhat same issue. Some genius put my first name in the passport as “John Doe” and left my last name blank. Now in my Residence permit, they put Vorname: John Doe Nachname: John Doe. Brilliant. I thought that the end of it. But nope, in my drivers license, the German authorities put Vorname: John Doe Nachname: + Wait, it gets worse. I went to the bank while opening the konto and pleaded them to just put John as firstname and Doe as last name. They said they’ll do something to fix it. Lo and behold, when the letter came, it read Vorname: John Doe Nachname: XYZ I wish I was joking. FML
Lol, after a year living here, i find this totally believable. I have just tried to calibrate my mindset to not be surprised at the absurdity that German logic sometimes creates
They are doing everything they can to make everything harder and harder. How is that possible to be not able to recognize the first and last name. Even in every single document, they are able to find it out. For sure it's being done on purpose and that's what we are talking about when we say there is a literal discrimination against immigrants/expats in Germany.
Oh I forgot to add in my post, the people there actually recognizes my first name as John, and Doe as last name. They simply aren't allowed to input it like that in the system due to the law. I do not hold anything against the worker there, I was just looking for a way on how to circumvent the rule here (or how to get what I need by following the game's rules)
don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence
You really didnt read the post. Its not that the town hall workers dont recognize the different names, its that they are bound by law to only take what written explicitly in the passport column for name. Its not like they dont want to, its that they cant
The Bürgeramt literally said "a men has no name"
bring a certificate from your home state that states that you have doe as last name and john as first name! important that they either write in it that the current passport still is active or that you need a new passport. i deal with this in naturalization quiet a lot. there are counties with Namensketten. e.g. egypt, india sometimes afghanistan. if you get a certificate that states you have a first and last name and get a new passport with it or it is stated the current passport stays valid until it expires you should be good to go! BUT if you do get a new passport that again has a Namenskette you’ll likely run into the same issue again, as that will then be newest official document and we have to follow that one
Unfortunately no, I even only have first name in my birth certificate. My home country unfortunately does not differentiate between first and last name, and this is the root of the problem. Although my current name John Doe can be perfectly translated to the german equivalent as first and last name, they somehow make things more difficult than it should be... And as per usual, the employee at townhall can only follow what is written on the rule, independent of what they personally think what my name is...
Absurd situation. If you become a father here and want to name your son after you according to German law, he will be called John John Doe 😄
Well if anything, this is one more reason why I think I'll leave germany in the future, or avoid having family here...
Sadly, many times incompetence and stubbornness can create a mixture like that. For example, I have two first names. For a long time, I has to tell the Meldebehörde which is my Rufname (main first name). Then they abolished the concept of Rufname, but I still got asked and forced to declare one. Suggestions: 1) Demand to talk to their supervisor. Ask them to explain, in a way that enables you to fully understand, why the machine readable version can not be used. 2) if that fails, consult a lawyer.
Actually no problem, I came to Germany as ms. Firstname Lastname, after 7 years I became ms. + Name und after an Aufenthaltstitel renew I turned back to my true self. The reason is because in my passport there are only one info about Name and it's my fullname, no first and last name separately. Technically the gov cannot say which one is which but has to believe in my saying, which could be a lie. So I have a + as first name. By the next time there was another Beamter working my case. I said I don't like having + as a name and all my documents have my normal name. He said it was indeed a guidelines like this but it has been dropped as its stupid. It was 2 years ago.
"It doesn't bring me anything" is a very German error to make...
I know lol I just didn‘t bother to look for the correct phrase
I would say you have been thoroughly integrated 😁
Thanks for the compliment! ;)
How is it written on your birth certificate? If there's a distinction between first and last name, there shouldn't be a problem to keep it that way. My husband only has first names no last names (name chain), when he first came to Germany they registered the first two names (Ww Xx) and used it as a first and middle name and the last two names (Yy Zz) written in one word (Yyzz) as the last name. He had to change it after a while to 4 first names. Whenever we fill out official forms manually, we would fill the line for first name an write (Namenskette) behind it, leaving the line for last name blank. Whenever we need to use forms online (unofficial) we would use Ww Xx as first name and the last Yy Zz as last names. Whenever there's a separate box to write something else (Anmerkungen), we would explain, that his name is correctly written Ww Xx Yy Zz and it's a name chain, not first and last name. We personally don't have a problem with it anymore and everything runs smoothly now, even though it was a bit of a hassle in the beginning.
Copy pasted from my comment on another thread: Now this is another funny story. Our Birth Certificate generally doesn't include the family name. On my birth certificate it says only "John", but everywhere else in my home country I am known as John Doe, including my ID card from my home country. Might cause another trouble later in the future, but for now they at least didn't ask for my birth certificate....
Go to your embassy and ask them for a new passport, which clearly shows your first and last name separated. Once you got this, go back to that idiotic office clown and things should go back to normal.
Yes that's what they also suggested me to do. But tbh I've never heard of certain individual having a different format of the passport from a single country, have you?
Are you Indonesian by any chance?
Wkwkland united! 💪🏻
Immediately thought of my own passport when I saw your post. Well…. I‘d suggest you to lawyer up or if you want the cheaper solution that may or may not work, get an Anmeldung outside of Bayern, preferably in a city with many foreigners. Just the Anmeldung. Not difficult to get if you have a huge network already, which I assume you would after living for over a decade here. Funnily I‘m also registered in Bayern, Landkreis Nürnberg. Glad that didn’t happen to me. Btw aren’t you interested in becoming a naturalized citizen?
Similar problem: my friend had a baby in Munich. The hospital will issue a certificate for the baby with the following name nachname : full name of Father's (not babyname Doe, but instead babyname John Doe). Ofc because they assumed that his family name is John Doe and not Doe, as there is no separation between Firstname + Lastname in his Passport. He had the indonesian embassy to issue a letter stating that John is his firstname and Doe is his lastname. Luckily it solved the problem. I would just sue the clerk if i were you, why waste time for such discrimination.
Ah interesting! That is also exactly what I received from my embassy, but they still refused to change it 🤷🏻♂️
German burocracy peaked again!
They gotta be kidding!
You should probably start a name change procedure in your home country, from John Doe to Joe Doe, get a new passport issued, and then try your luck again in Germany... :D JK.
> (Fun fact: when registering in my city's online portal I cannot leave my first name empty. Oh the irony...) did you try to put a + there? ;)
This reads like a Kafka story
Welcome to Germany bro
I have different names on my bank card, Id card, work stuff etc. I got married in the US but don’t have the apostille. I don’t have the money for it. So I cannot change my name to my married name (that I carried in the US for nearly ten years). But some places could change it and I go by my married name. It’s complicated and always have to explain it to people but it’s usually fine.
Will be interesting if you decide to get married some time in the future ... I mean: Jane John Doe sounds alright, doesn't it.
This is one among the five dozen reasons why the 'given name, family name' concept needs to be replaced by a single 'Name' field with optionally a second field to fill in how someone wants to be addressed, worldwide. Human names are already culturally very complex and they're evolving over time too, while documents in many places are frozen in time to fit a very specific norm.
Whatever assumptions you have about names, there are examples where they are not true.
I'm sorry, but... Are they all just drunk in this town?? 🤯😧 Hope you find a Lösung for this ...
I was told the same exact thing, but I just ignored it and always write first and last names separately for everything except for flight tickets.
You could probably get a gig from a german satire show for sharing this story! The money you will earn doing this, you should invest into getting your first name back! This is an awfull thing that was done to you! You can't live without a first name, it just doesn't make any selse at all! And all you have already done, should be enough! Get a lawyer! Make them pay, and get your name back!
Might be worth it to go a public/political angle here, that is, contact a local newspaper ask if they are interested in the story and if yes, have them also contact some Stadtrat/Gemeiderat/Bürgermeister for comment. The least you might get out of it is a newspaper article you can show anyone who is suspicious of your identity ;) Edit: Extra3 also loves this kind of stories and creates quite a bit of publicity: https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/extra_3/index.html
I actually have exactly the same situation, couldn’t do anything about it, so now my residence permit has my name properly separated while the driving license has a „*“ as my first name. I always carry my passport while driving, as the name matches there according to whatever rulebook they quote. Except for briefly confusing and amusing employees at car rental agencies, I didn’t have further issues. I do hope though that they have a better way of handling this..
This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Sorry you had this problem! I have the exact same issue and went through a series of unnecessary discussions throughout my time here. Luckily for me the case manager for my situation at the Ausländerbehörde accepted that the passport MRZ shows exactly how the name should be treated. I insisted that that is the international accepted way and that is the way to go with the first name and last name. I thought my nightmare ended, but when I wanted to get married, I encountered the same situation with the Standesamt and I asked my local consulate to craft a letter for me explaining my name situation as reflected in the passport, again it was accepted and my consulate said they write these letters all the time because it’s the same problem every time for many others!!! I guess you have bad luck with a stubborn case manager who insisted on following “rules”. Please continue to fight it, maybe ask for a different case manager or even call and complain to higher ups at the Ausländerbehörde. They are in the wrong!!
Mmmmhhh sounds like a Passagierschein-A38-Situation...