'We've been banned from changing our name - but we're mocked every day'
A married couple’s request to change their Russian-sounding name has been rejected by a German court, despite the pair being mocked daily since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The German-born couple claimed that they and their daughter had suffered too many ribbings over their name, which is similar to that of a former Polish porn actress.
According to German newspaper Bild, officials in the state of Rhineland Palatinate refused to authorise the change, with the judges unable to accept the couple’s argument.
The judges said that the performer, believed to be 80s adult star Teresa Orlowski, 58, was no longer well-known enough for people to make the connection, due to her being out of the industry for too long.
The regional administrative court in Koblenz said that judges dismissed the couple’s request on the grounds that their reasons were insufficient. They did not provide the couple's surname in line with German privacy rules.
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The court’s statement read: “The fact that a family name is of foreign origin or doesn't sound German is in itself generally not an important reason for a name change.”
The court argued that the negative treatment the couple claimed to have received over their name, since the war in Ukraine began, wasn’t serious enough to warrant the change.
It also stated that the family's economic situation hadn't been affected.
The couple can appeal the ruling.
The strict rules on surnames in Germany are currently changing, with plans in place to allow families to now have double-barrelled surnames.
Conjoined surnames were banned in the 1990s, in order to stop name chains lengthening across generations.
The only exception is for the spouse whose name is not taken on in matrimony.
Women often end up having double-barrelled names, while their husbands and children keep a single surname.
Justice minister Marco Buschmann, of the liberal Free Democrats, said it was time for the rules to be liberalised to keep up with societal change.
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