Name change is the legal act by a person of adopting a new name different from their current name.
When a person assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name, whereas a married name is a family name or surname adopted by a person upon marriage.
A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a person. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuing registration of that birth. Depending on the jurisdiction, a record of birth might or might not contain verification of the event by a healthcare professional such as a midwife or doctor.
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that allows people who have gender dysphoria to change their legal gender. It came into effect on 4 April 2005.
A marriage license is a document issued, either by a religious organization or state authority, authorizing a couple to marry. The procedure for obtaining a license varies between jurisdictions, and has changed over time. Marriage licenses began to be issued in the Middle Ages, to permit a marriage which would otherwise be illegal.
Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, illegitimacy, also known as bastardy, has been the status of a child born outside marriage, such a child being known as a bastard, a love child, a natural child, or illegitimate. In Scots law, the terms natural son and natural daughter carry the same implications.
The General Register Office for England and Wales (GRO) is the section of the United Kingdom HM Passport Office responsible for the civil registration of births, adoptions, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths in England and Wales and for those same events outside the UK if they involve a UK citizen and qualify to be registered in various miscellaneous registers. With a small number of historic exceptions involving military personnel, it does not deal with records of such events occurring within the land or territorial waters of Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland; those entities' registration systems have always been separate from England and Wales.
Closed adoption is a process by which an infant is adopted by another family, and the record of the biological parent(s) is kept sealed. Often, the biological father is not recorded—even on the original birth certificate. An adoption of an older child who already knows their biological parent(s) cannot be made closed or secret. This used to be the most traditional and popular type of adoption, peaking in the decades of the post-World War II Baby Scoop Era. It still exists today, but it exists alongside the practice of open adoption. The sealed records effectively prevent the adoptee and the biological parents from finding, or even knowing anything about each other. However, the emergence of non-profit organizations and private companies to assist individuals with their sealed records has been effective in helping people who want to connect with biological relatives to do so.
A parish register, alternatively known as a parochial register, is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church of an ecclesiastical parish in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms, marriages, and burials are recorded. Along with these events, church goods, the parish's business, and notes on various happenings in the parish may also be recorded. These records exist in England because they were required by law and for the purpose of preventing bigamy and consanguineous marriage.
Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in different subnational jurisdictions. It can be called a civil registry, civil register, vital records, and other terms, and the office responsible for receiving the registrations can be called a bureau of vital statistics, registry of vital records and statistics, registrar, registry, register, registry office, or population registry. The primary purpose of civil registration is to create a legal document that can be used to establish and protect the rights of individuals. A secondary purpose is to create a data source for the compilation of vital statistics.
General Register Office or General Registry Office (GRO) is the name given to the civil registry in the United Kingdom, many other Commonwealth nations and Ireland. The GRO is the government agency responsible for the recording of vital records such as births, deaths, and marriages, which may also include adoptions, stillbirths, civil unions, etc., and historically, sometimes included records relating to deeds and other property transactions.
A legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of registration of the birth and which then appears on a birth certificate, but may change subsequently. Most jurisdictions require the use of a legal name for all legal and administrative purposes, and some jurisdictions permit or require a name change to be recorded at marriage. The legal name may need to be used on various government issued documents. The term is also used when an individual changes their name, typically after reaching a certain legal age.
A marriage certificate is an official statement that two people are married. In most jurisdictions, a marriage certificate is issued by a government official only after the civil registration of the marriage.
Teenage marriage is the union of two adolescents, ranging from ages 13 to 19. Many factors contribute to teenage marriage such as love, teenage pregnancy, religion, security, wealth, family, peer pressure, arranged marriage, economical and/or political reasons, social advancement, and cultural reasons. Studies have shown that teenage married couples are often disadvantaged, may come from broken homes, may have little education, and work low status jobs in comparison with those that marry after adolescence.
In Nazi Germany, the Aryan certificate/passport was a document which certified that a person was a member of the presumed Aryan race. Beginning in April 1933, it was required from all employees and officials in the public sector, including education, according to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. It was also a primary requirement to become a Reich citizen for those who were of German or related blood (Aryan) and wanted to become Reich citizens after the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935. A "Swede or an Englishman, a Frenchman or Czech, a Pole or Italian" was considered to be related, that is, "Aryan".
Adoption in the Philippines is a process of granting social, emotional and legal family and kinship membership to an individual from the Philippines, usually a child. It involves a transfer of parental rights and obligations and provides family membership. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) defines adoption as a "socio-legal process of giving a permanent family to a child whose parents have voluntarily or involuntarily given up their parental rights."
Recognition is the process in some jurisdictions whereby a man is recognised as the father of a child in situations of no presumption of paternity, generally because the mother is unwed. Historically, the Roman law principle of mater semper certa est causes the action was not available to mothers, but the introduction of in-vitro fertilisation has changed that to change. Recognition is an act that confers legitimacy on the child.
Transgender rights in Australia have legal protection under federal and state/territory laws, but the requirements for gender recognition vary depending on the jurisdiction. For example, birth certificates, recognised details certificates, and driver licences are regulated by the states and territories, while Medicare and passports are matters for the Commonwealth.
Transgender rights in the Federal Republic of Germany are regulated by the Transsexuellengesetz since 1980, and indirectly affected by other laws like the Abstammungsrecht. The law initially required transgender people to undergo sex-reassignment surgery in order to have key identity documents changed. This has since been declared unconstitutional. The German government has pledged to replace the Transsexuellengesetz with the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz, which would remove the financial and bureaucratic hurdles necessary for legal gender and name changes. Discrimination protections on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation vary across Germany, but discrimination in employment and the provision of goods and services is in principle banned countrywide.
Civil registration in Australia of births, deaths and marriages as well other life events is carried out and maintained by each state and territory in Australia, in an office called a Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. It is compulsory in each jurisdiction, though the procedures and information recorded varies between jurisdictions. Access to information on the register is restricted by period or relationship, and is usually provided at a fee in the form of certificates. Nowadays, certificates can also be ordered online, and will be posted to the applicant, often with some delay.
