As far as I knew in the past all children born to a foreign father with a foreign name has to add a Chinese name when registring in the household registry. And I have seen recent articles that this law has changed recently and it allows to retain the foreign name and allows addition of foreign names to the household registry. Could you please confirm if this is correct.
FYI
Name Act 2015.05.20
http://law.moj.gov.tw/MOBILE/lawEng.aspx?pcode=D0030011
Article 4
The ethnic name or Han Chinese name of a Taiwan indigenous person or other ethnic minority may be listed in Romanized form together with the name in Chinese characters and is not subject to the restriction in paragraph 1 of Article 1.
When taking a Chinese-language name during the naturalization process, a foreign national or a stateless person may have his/her original foreign name registered in Romanized form alongside the name in Chinese characters, and is not subject to the restriction in paragraph 1 of Article 1.
@tando I feel like I just hit the jackpot here, thank you for this!!
I’m American and my Taiwanese wife and I just had a child here in Yilan three weeks ago. I’m trying to get my child’s Household Registration done with both her Chinese name in Chinese characters, and her English name next to it, just like aboriginals are allowed to do. The village my wife is registered in here in Yilan deals with a lot of aboriginals, but zero other ethnic minorities, and they are telling us it is absolutely only allowed for aboriginals. They want some proof or another office they can contact - the Article 4 that you’ve linked to appears to be our magic bullet as it says “or other ethnic minorities” which I’m assuming would include my daughter as she is half caucasian.
For any others who come across this, the link @tando posted appears to be dead now, here is a working link: https://law.judicial.gov.tw/LAWENG//FLAW/dat02.aspx?lsid=FL002325
I will also post again in a few days to update on how we go with the Household Registration office when we go back armed with this new info.
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OK. My (Taiwanese) parents-in-law are now saying that our daughter wouldn’t be considered an “ethnic minority” since she was born in Taiwan, and that’s why the Household Registration office refused to write her English name. That makes no sense to me. If she’s not an “ethnic minority” (my wife is Taiwanese, I’m white), then who is?
Does anyone know of any definition of who qualifies as an “ethnic minority” in Taiwan, and/or any documentation describing this which we can show the Household Registration office?
Just curious, but why do you want to do this?
It really doesn’t.
Looking at this
There were some other Forumosa threads with people (mostly Europeans I think) trying to get their biracial children European passports and they were having trouble getting their countries to accept European names because the Household Registration was done only with the Chinese name. I can’t find the threads now but it was very frustrating for these folks and they wished they’d not registered a Chinese name only, but once done, it can’t be undone.
So long story short - I want my daughter to have her English name officially on her official birth documents (the Household Registration), so that she doesn’t have any issues later in life when applying for visas or citizenship or w/e under her English name.
Though I don’t think it will be an immediate issue as it seems AIT does accept the Taiwan hospital birth certificate, which was easy enough for us to get an English version with her English name. We have our CRBA appointment at AIT tomorrow.
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So, isn’t getting your daughters name in the Household Registration enough? Does it need to be next to the Chinese name?
I don’t think it needs to be next to it, no. What the Office told us was that they wouldn’t put it anywhere. We asked about putting it down below (I’d be fine with that). They said, she’s Taiwanese, she’s not aboriginal, so we can only write her Chinese name in Chinese characters and that’s it.
I’m not European but when I got my kids their passports, I just needed a birth certificate–the hospital gave me one in English when they were born.
Their names in the Household Registration are in Chinese with no English.
There are two things in HHR. Name in Chinese and Name in English.
The name in English is a translation of the Chinese name. Our kids have their German name in brackets behind it.
e.g.
ING, WEN (ANGELA MERKEL)
This is not an official document and not accepted in Germany. Only HHR is accepted as birth certificate.
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Hard to find anything about what “ethnic minorities” is supposed to mean if not some Taiwan aboriginal group.
It seems some minority people from mainland.
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You can get the hospital’s birth certificate notarized by the public notary in your place of residence in Taiwan, and that should then be accepted as an official document. (That’s what we did and it worked)