Parliament Committee about surnames: Yes for ‘w’, ‘q’, ‘x’ – no for ‘ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, ż’

The Parliament Committee of Law and Rule of Law proposes the spelling of surnames in documents to be with the letters of Latin alphabet and based on the standards of International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO.

On Wednesday the committee approved the draft of the Act on original spelling of surnames, prepared by socio-democrats Irena Šiaulienė and Gediminas Kirkilas, but decided to improve it.

The draft provides for original spelling of surnames in documents, using non-Lithuanian letters of Latin alphabet if it is proved in a source document.
The committee says that the previous phrasing ‘based on Latin letters’ would mean introducing not only additional letters ‘w’, ‘q’, and ‘x’, but also several dozens of diacritical characters. That is why the phrasing was changed to ‘with the letters of Latin alphabet’, which will allow to introduce only those three letters.

In Parliament there has been registered an alternative draft of the act, which provides original spelling of surnames inside the passport.

The State Commission of the Lithuanian Language also approved the original spelling of surnames, but only for foreigners, who received Lithuanian citizenship and Lithuanian citizens who married foreigners.