Sejm Committee on Human Rights will consider the spelling of female surnames ending in -a.

Will women in Lithuania be allowed to use a surname ending in -a? On Wednesday, the Seimas Committee on Human Rights resumed consideration of this issue.

“Society holds rather sexist views about women based on their surnames. When applying for a job, a woman may encounter different attitudes – if her surname ends in -aitė, someone might assume she is inexperienced; the ending -ienė may suggest that she is supposedly old or older,” said Social Democrat Laurynas Šedvydis, chairman of the Seimas Committee on Human Rights, presenting the issue.

As he emphasized, the question also arises: who owns the surname – the individual or the state?

Cases of discrimination against women

The head of the Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights, Jūratė Juškaitė, pointed out that women face situations where employers, seeing their marital status through their surname, discriminate against them.

She also called for attention to the needs of transgender people. According to Juškaitė, currently some members of this community have no possibility of choosing a gender-neutral form of a surname.

Meiliūnaitė: ‘‘The system of name creation unravelled’’.

Experts in the Lithuanian language and the president’s advisor emphasized that surname creation is part of the Lithuanian language system and cannot be broken. “I would like to convey a very brief and clear message: that individuals, citizens, their identification is part of the state and culture. We cannot succumb to emotions, fashion, or trends in this area; we must preserve our cultural identity. Let’s leave these matters to the specialists,” said the president’s advisor, Saulius Olencevičius.

Chair of the State Lithuanian Language Commission (VLKK) Violeta Meiliūnaitė supported this position. ‘’The Language Commission’s position is that the name system must be consistent and all names must conform to this system’’ – said the chairwoman.

As she pointed out, there is currently such a system in place where surnames can indicate a woman’s married or unmarried status, but it is also possible to hide this circumstance if a woman chooses a surname with the suffix -ė.

“This system is suitable for all surnames. When the discussion about female surnames ending in -a took place, we encountered at least a few problems. First, the surname creation system becomes unstable, which violates the tradition of the Lithuanian language. Second, one group of surnames stands out, which is relatively small, and discriminatory conditions are created for holders of other surnames,” said V. Meiliūnaitė.

The head of the VKK also expressed concern that if some women are allowed to choose unchanged male surnames with the ending -a, another step will soon be taken – they will want to adopt other unchanged male surnames. “This is completely unacceptable and entirely atypical for the tradition of the Lithuanian language,” she emphasized.

Meiliūnaitė: “An invasive change”

According to Rita Miliūnaitė, the main researcher at the Lithuanian Language Institute, the proposed project is contradictory to linguistic logic and word formation. “The proposal for female surnames with the ending -a is not about creating words, but merely adopting the male form,” said R. Miliūnaitė.

According to her, this way of creating female surnames is invasive and un-Lithuanian. “It is essentially Anglo-Saxon, borrowed from other languages, languages whose systems are completely different from the Lithuanian language system. We certainly cannot agree to such an adoption,” said the employee of the Lithuanian Language Institute.

According to her, if female surnames with the ending -a were allowed, it would be impossible to create grammatically correct sentences. “We wouldn’t know which gender to associate with the surname Lydeka if there were no first name next to it,” emphasized the specialist.

Gentvilas: “It may sound Polish”

Liberal Eugenijus Gentvilas, a member of the Seimas Committee on Human Rights, considered that a female surname with the ending -a might suggest the person’s possible nationality. “Please agree that it might sound a bit Polish,” he said.

According to the politician, it would also be necessary to allow surnames with the ending -o. “Then, why even have an ending, could it just be Gentvil?” the politician wondered.

He rejected concerns that a surname reveals a woman’s marital status and could lead to her discrimination by employers. “Can an unmarried woman not have a child? Do you think all employers are homophobic?” he asked.

Minister of Social Security and Labour, Inga Ruginienė, encouraged the legalization of family surnames. “I am for the family surname. If it is Ruginis, then the whole family should be called Ruginis,” she said.

Return of the issue

According to a draft amendment to the Law on the Registration of Names and Surnames in Documents, prepared by MP Ieva Pakarklytė, the surname given by a spouse to another spouse, or given to a child by one or both parents, in citizens’ identity documents and civil status records would be written ’’in Lithuanian letters and taking into account gender differences in the form of the surname, except (. …) where it is desirable to give a female surname with the ending -a or -ia, formed from a male surname with the ending -a or -ia’’.

At present, the procedure for the formation of female surnames is determined by the Lithuanian State Language Commission by its resolution. According to the current rule, female surnames are formed from the basic male surname with the suffixes -aitė, -ytė, -utė, -(i)ūtė, as well as -ienė and -(i)uvienė and in cases where it is desirable to have a form of the surname that does not indicate marital status, the surname may be formed from the form of the male surname with the suffix -ė.

Therefore, both the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language and the Seimas lawyers criticized Ieva Pakarklytė’s draft. The Language Commission gave a negative assessment of Pakarklytė’s proposal, stating that legalizing the spelling of female surnames ending in -a would negatively affect linguistic and cultural identity, as the proposal does not align with the principles of surname formation. Moreover, it does not conform to the tradition of the Lithuanian language.

The author of the draft stated during the previous parliamentary term that she merely offered women an additional option to choose their preferred form of surname. According to her, this rule would certainly not become dominant, so there is no reason to fear it would harm the Lithuanian language.

The Seimas Committee on Education and Science in the previous term did not approve the proposal, but on April 29, the new parliament rejected that committee’s conclusion and tasked the Committee on Human Rights and the Committee on the Recognition of Lithuanian Traditions and Heritage with re-examining the matter.