Immigrationboards.com

HI every one!

Today I received my naturalisation approval letter and invitation to the citizenship ceremony. One small problem: my name Spell are fine on the letter, Only issue is there is hyphen symbol between my first name and middle name
"Firstname-MiddleName LastName"


According to the letter, if my details are wrong I should still attend the ceremony and then send the naturalisation certificate to the Home Office together with a copy of my passport or birth certificate. my question is

1) Could it be that the hyphen is mandatory in this country for First name and second name if consisting of more than one word? or do i need to send it back to rectify

tehmina wrote: 1) Could it be that the hyphen is mandatory in this country for First name and second name if consisting of more than one word? or do i need to send it back to rectify

No, it is not mandatory – absolutely not.

Unfortunately many people in this country tend to get confused when dealing with names and surnames that don’t conform to the Anglo-Saxon style. This is the case for surnames with two words, which can be quite common in Italy, France or Spanish-speaking countries (e.g. De La Renta, De La Rosa, Dalle Rovere); similarly, in many (if not all) Spanish speaking countries two surnames are used: the first surname of the father and the first surname of the mother. I don’t even want to imagine the confusion that can arise when your name is in a different alphabet (Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, etc) or contains apostrophes, accents or other characters not commonly used in English.

My advice is to strongly insist that your name be recorded correctly, and make sure that even the slightest error is communicated and rectified asap. I know people who didn’t bother correcting what they thought were small errors (like the first part of the surname being recorded as middle name, or only one of the two surnames being recorded), and eventually came to regret it because this messed up their credit records (Juan De La Renta and Juan Renta would not be recognised as the same individual) and created problems when they had to prove their identity (because the passport and the bank records didn’t match 100%).

LondonApplicant wrote:

tehmina wrote: 1) Could it be that the hyphen is mandatory in this country for First name and second name if consisting of more than one word? or do i need to send it back to rectify

No, it is not mandatory – absolutely not.

Unfortunately many people in this country tend to get confused when dealing with names and surnames that don’t conform to the Anglo-Saxon style. This is the case for surnames with two words, which can be quite common in Italy, France or Spanish-speaking countries (e.g. De La Renta, De La Rosa, Dalle Rovere); similarly, in many (if not all) Spanish speaking countries two surnames are used: the first surname of the father and the first surname of the mother. I don’t even want to imagine the confusion that can arise when your name is in a different alphabet (Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, etc) or contains apostrophes, accents or other characters not commonly used in English.

My advice is to strongly insist that your name be recorded correctly, and make sure that even the slightest error is communicated and rectified asap. I know people who didn’t bother correcting what they thought were small errors (like the first part of the surname being recorded as middle name, or only one of the two surnames being recorded), and eventually came to regret it because this messed up their credit records (Juan De La Renta and Juan Renta would not be recognised as the same individual) and created problems when they had to prove their identity (because the passport and the bank records didn’t match 100%).

Thanks for your reply.
do i need to wait for correction of certificate in order to apply for passport or as there is no spell mistake and there is no problem with first or last name order,i can proceed for passport as i will send current passport where my full name will be with out hyphen symbol
just to clarify there is hyphen between first name and middle name not between first and last.

tehmina wrote:
Thanks for your reply.
do i need to wait for correction of certificate in order to apply for passport or as there is no spell mistake and there is no problem with first or last name order,i can proceed for passport as i will send current passport where my full name will be with out hyphen symbol
just to clarify there is hyphen between first name and middle name not between first and last.

This I don't know - sorry.

LondonApplicant wrote:

tehmina wrote:
Thanks for your reply.
do i need to wait for correction of certificate in order to apply for passport or as there is no spell mistake and there is no problem with first or last name order,i can proceed for passport as i will send current passport where my full name will be with out hyphen symbol
just to clarify there is hyphen between first name and middle name not between first and last.

This I don't know - sorry.

Any one else who experience similar issue-please respond

Use the following link which is a directive of home office, you will find your situation here:-

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publicatio ... iew=Binary

tehmina wrote:

LondonApplicant wrote:

tehmina wrote:
Thanks for your reply.
do i need to wait for correction of certificate in order to apply for passport or as there is no spell mistake and there is no problem with first or last name order,i can proceed for passport as i will send current passport where my full name will be with out hyphen symbol
just to clarify there is hyphen between first name and middle name not between first and last.

This I don't know - sorry.

Any one else who experience similar issue-please respond

tehmina wrote:

LondonApplicant wrote:

tehmina wrote: 1) Could it be that the hyphen is mandatory in this country for First name and second name if consisting of more than one word? or do i need to send it back to rectify

No, it is not mandatory – absolutely not.

Unfortunately many people in this country tend to get confused when dealing with names and surnames that don’t conform to the Anglo-Saxon style. This is the case for surnames with two words, which can be quite common in Italy, France or Spanish-speaking countries (e.g. De La Renta, De La Rosa, Dalle Rovere); similarly, in many (if not all) Spanish speaking countries two surnames are used: the first surname of the father and the first surname of the mother. I don’t even want to imagine the confusion that can arise when your name is in a different alphabet (Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, etc) or contains apostrophes, accents or other characters not commonly used in English.

My advice is to strongly insist that your name be recorded correctly, and make sure that even the slightest error is communicated and rectified asap. I know people who didn’t bother correcting what they thought were small errors (like the first part of the surname being recorded as middle name, or only one of the two surnames being recorded), and eventually came to regret it because this messed up their credit records (Juan De La Renta and Juan Renta would not be recognised as the same individual) and created problems when they had to prove their identity (because the passport and the bank records didn’t match 100%).

Thanks for your reply.
do i need to wait for correction of certificate in order to apply for passport or as there is no spell mistake and there is no problem with first or last name order,i can proceed for passport as i will send current passport where my full name will be with out hyphen symbol
just to clarify there is hyphen between first name and middle name not between first and last.

My wife had the same spelling problem in her certificate, but unlike yours, her surname was written quite different. she attended the ceremony and then sent the certificate plus her driving licence to UKBA, after 2 weeks she received a new corrected certificate from them. then she applied for passport. when you apply for passport, they put your name down exactly as it shown on your certificate, we were told by IPS(Identity and Passport Service).
so my advice for you would be, wait until the ceremony, when you've got your certificate in hand, hopefully there is no mistake & you can apply for your passport, if not then send your certificate plus your UK driving licence OR your foreign passport(either valid or expired) OR your Birth certificate to UKBA office in Liverpool. you will receive a new certificate no longer than 1 month. this is what we were told by UKBA at that time, I personally think you will get it a lot earlier now cos at the moment the whole Naturalization application takes 1 month so yours will be a week or two maximum. hope you find this helpful. Good Luck

i send certificate back to UKBA with copy of current passport on 19th feb

yet no response,let see how much time they will take to remove hyphen:)

LondonApplicant wrote:No, it is not mandatory – absolutely not.

Yup, just to confirm, my wife has a first name made of 2 words separated by a space, and a last name made of 2 words separated by a space, following this schema:

FFF FFF LLL LLL

And the UKBA got it right, no dashes.

is their any contact number or email address where i can check progress of my certificate as its now more then 2 weeks and didnt get my certificate back after correction.