Do you think this should be made a rule here?
The Constitutional Court in Italy, the highest court in the country, ruled earlier this week that children in the country should be automatically given the surnames of both parents.
The ruling has overturned the tradition of automatically giving a child their father’s surname, with the court saying the practice was “discriminatory and harmful to the identity” of the child.
So now, instead of the default surname being the father’s, Italian newborns will carry both parents’ surnames, making their full name a combination of the two.
In a statement, the Constitutional Court said that children should be given both parents’ surnames in the order they decide, unless the parents agree on just one of the names.
Elena Bonetti, Minister for Family and Equal Opportunities in Italy, said on Facebook that the government would fully support the decision.
She added that parents should take equal responsibility in the upbringing of a child.
This ruling came after Italian parents sought to give their newborn baby the last name of the mother only. In the family, the two older kids carry only their mum’s last name, and the parents wanted their new baby’s name to align with their siblings.
Their request was denied because the law only allowed for either the father’s last name or a hyphenated name with both surnames.
Domenico Pittella, a lawyer for the family, told The Washington Post this week that the ruling was a “landmark judgment,” adding that the new ruling has “acknowledged that it is in the best interest of the newborn child that the choices of his parents” are what dictates what their name will be and not have a name that’s “imposed by an outdated model of the patriarchal family.”
In Ireland, like in most of Europe, the most common practice still is giving children only the father’s name. But this is not the case everywhere, with for instance Spanish speaking countries having a long-held tradition where the child is given both parents’ names.
Do you think a similar law should be in place here in Ireland? Did you use both surnames for your child’s last name? Or how did you agree on which one to use?
