Interior Ministry plans to ease surname change rules

Estonia’s Interior Ministry plans to remove limits on taking very rare or very common surnames under a draft law, ERR reports. The Estonian Language Institute, a language research institution, opposes the change.

Under current rules, people cannot take a surname held by fewer than 20 people or by more than 500 people. The limits do not apply when someone marries or takes the surname of an ancestor.

The draft would remove both restrictions. Interior Minister Igor Taro said the change would let people decide whether to choose a widely used surname or one held by few people.

Fred Puss, a name researcher at the Estonian Language Institute, said people already had a broad choice of their ancestors’ surnames, as well as the option to create a new name. He said the institute considered it questionable for someone with no connection to a family to take a surname held by only a handful of people.

Puss said Estonia’s historically rich collection of surnames, including names held by very few people, was worth preserving. Taro said the change would not harm that diversity, adding that people could create new surnames using Estonian compound words.

Puss also noted that approaches vary by country. In Sweden and Denmark, he said, people can take existing surnames only if they have at least 2,000 bearers.

Taro argued that common surnames need not cause confusion in official business because people are identified by personal identification codes.