The controversial future Civil Registry law proposes that parents agree on the order of the child's surnames, but there seems to be no consensus as to how to solve the problem when dad and mom do not reach an agreement. The solution was to use the alphabetical order, but experts believe that throw a coin in the air to decide the baby's last name It is more objective.
What is intended with the new law is to eliminate the prevalence of the father's last name, allowing parents to choose by common accord which name they want to leave first when a newborn is enrolled. With the condition of maintaining that order with all the children.
Article 49 of the new law says:
"In case of disagreement or when the surnames have not been recorded in the application for registration, the Civil Registry Officer will determine the order of the surnames according to their alphabetical order."
As expected, the proposal has sparked a heated debate. Establishing the surnames in alphabetical order does not just convince, among other things because it is believed that after many generations the last names of the last places of the alphabet will eventually disappear.
Five possible solutions
Parents are increasingly lost. And politicians who discuss the law in the phase of amendments, too. The issue seems to get entangled more and more in Congress. In the amendments, the different political parties have presented Up to five alternative formulas in alphabetical order in case of disagreement between parents.
It is proposed:
1) The suppression of the legal change, that is to say, to suppress the criterion of establishment of the order of last names and continue as until now.
2) Set first less frequent last name according to the counts of the National Institute of Statistics.
3) Define the order of surnames by draw.
4) That the order of the last names does not follow the alphabet automatically, but that some random element. That the official decides the order using an ascending or descending alphabetical order criteria alternately. That is to say, that the person in charge of the Registry prioritizes in an inscription the last name whose initial letter is placed before in the alphabet, and in the following inscription prime the last name whose initial letter is later. This would make more last name rotation.
4) Finally, it has been suggested to add the copulative conjunction 'i' Enter last names when requested.
Throw a coin in the air
Can you imagine in the Civil Registry throwing a coin in the air to decide the last name your son will carry? Sounds strange, but apparently in some European countries it is a fairly used method.
According to Patricia López Peláez, Civil Law expert, the decision criteria of luck It is the solution because "it does not give preference to any and does not necessarily mean that a last name is lost as time goes by". In addition, he believes that it solves the problem in families formed by two fathers or two mothers.
He believes that in any case, from the point of view of equality, Spain is a more advanced country than other Europeans in which the children only have a surname and this, in addition, is that of the father, while here the women retain the Last name when they get married and pass it on to their children.
Neither alphabetical nor random order
According to a professor of applied mathematics, neither of the two formulas is the solution.
Based on a calculation of probabilities, he believes that all surnames will end up disappearing except 'Abbot'. At some point all citizens will end up having the same last name and, in addition, in duplicate: 'Abbot Abad'.
Nor does he trust that the draw will be a solution because "It also betrays intuition and does not solve the problem of permanence of surnames, since they will also disappear in this hypothesis".
In general, the idea seems to have been well received that the parents agree to define the order of the last names of the children, but what remains unclear is how the conflict will be resolved in case of not reaching an agreement . Will we end up throwing a coin in the air to decide the baby's last name? On May 4, when the new law is finally voted, we will know the answer.
