A group of Members of Parliament has once again proposed legalizing the use of non-Lithuanian names with diacritical marks.

A group of Members of Parliament will once again attempt to legalize the use of diacritical marks in non-Lithuanian surnames.

Such a legal regulation would address the issues related to spelling of first and last names in their original form for Lithuanian citizens of non-Lithuanian descent, those who previously held citizenship of another country or married a foreign citizen, as well as for their children, according to the project’s explanatory statement. The amendments were drafted by nine representatives of the Social Democratic Party group and former speaker of the Seimas, liberal Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen.

According to the proposal, at the request of a Lithuanian citizen of non-Lithuanian nationality, the names and surnames of him and his children would be written using Latin alphabet letters in identity documents and civil status records.

Current law states, that such personal names are written in the Latin alphabet without diacritical marks.

According to the authors of the proposal, the current procedure has created an issue regarding the equal treatment of people, since a Lithuanian citizen whose non-Lithuanian surname contains only Latin alphabet characters can write it in the original way in official documents, e.g. Niewierowicz, Dobrowolska, while people whose surnames contain non-Lithuanian diacritical marks do not have such a right, e.g. Wołkonowski.

According to the authors of the amendment, concerns that such a spelling would harm the Lithuanian language are unfounded. Only more than 1,000 people have changed their names to W, Q, X.

The Seimas has been repeatedly asked to allow non-Lithuanian names to be spelled in their original form, with diacritical marks. The most recent rejection of such a proposal occurred in June 2023.

Last December, the Constitutional Court ruled that the possibility of writing non-Lithuanian names in the Latin alphabet without diacritical marks in personal documents is not unconstitutional. The court noted, however, that such characters would be permitted if the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language issued a corresponding ruling.

Violeta Meiliūnaitė, head of the Commission, told BNS that the Commission has never received a request regarding the use of diacritical marks in personal names, and therefore does not know what conclusions might be drawn.

The Lithuanian Language Institute stated that foreign diacritical marks in Lithuanian identity documents would pose a threat to the language.

As BNS reports, on February 13 of this year, the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit by a Lithuanian citizen over the use of a letter with a diacritical mark, because, according to the court, the spelling of such a letter does not comply with the requirements of current legislation.