Hi all,
My pregnant wife is currently in Taiwan and is preparing to give birth. She prefers delivering the child there simply because the care center for the moms and her family is still in Taiwan. Additional info, I am a US citizen and she has green card. So we made few phone calls regarding consular report of birth abroad and US passport for the child. Since we are not registered as a married couple in Taiwan, my name will not appear on the baby’s birth certificate in neither Taiwanese version nor English version. And the baby will have the mom’s last name on the Taiwanese version of birth certificate but on the English version you can put in whatever name you want according to the hospital. So I am wondering if anyone here experienced any issues when applying US passport and birth abroad certificate for the baby??
My wife had an appointment with AIT and they said that shouldn’t be a problem as long as we have all the supporting documents (official marriage certificate from the US… etc) but we are still really worried that there will still be some issues. Your experience will definitely help us!!
Thank you in advance.
It may not be exactly what you are looking for, but this thread talks about registering the newborn with different names in Taiwan.
[url]Different last names in Canadian/Taiwan passports
Maybe a US citizen can share their experience in Taiwan?
I saw that thread and that help us a lot. I guess you can chose what last name to put on the English birth certificate issued by the hospital and I believe they don’t really care what you put on there. But the Taiwanese version will follow the mom’s last name if you are not registered as a married couple in Taiwan. Am I right?
You are correct regarding the English birth certificate, but I’m not sure if it’s a requirement to follow the mom’s last name for unregistered couples. In our case, we decided to do so because my wife’s last name really is a last name, in a sense that belongs to a family with history and ancestors. My Chinese last name was no more than just a word with a similar sound to my Portuguese one (also one of the reasons I changed my Chinese last name to be the same as my wife’s).
I would suggest you to visit the Household Registration Office of your district and clarify your questions. Just make sure that you ask the leader officer instead of the front-desk lady, as she can be lost and just give you the wrong answer. In our experience, we had a hard time to register our son with a different English name than a translation of his Chinese name, but that was due to the lack of knowledge/experience of the lady who attended us. Once her superior came to talk to us, things were way smoother.