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jmomcc

Star Member
May 29, 2014
114
5
I got a new passport this year and have noticed that I have a gap after the 'Mc' in my family name. It wasn't on my old passport. I asked around and a lot of my friends also have gaps in their newish passports.

I contacted the embassy and they said its (completely unpublicized) policy and that I can change it if I wish. I really don't have the time though at this point as it would take a few weeks at least.

This is compounded by the fact that of my 6 siblings and parents, 3 have the gap (got new passports quite recently) and 5 don't.

How should I write their names on the additional family information form?

edit: I personally am quite happy just to keep this spelling going forward. It wouldn't affect my life at all hardly.
 
jmomcc said:
I got a new passport this year and have noticed that I have a gap after the 'Mc' in my family name. It wasn't on my old passport. I asked around and a lot of my friends also have gaps in their newish passports.

I contacted the embassy and they said its (completely unpublicized) policy and that I can change it if I wish. I really don't have the time though at this point as it would take a few weeks at least.

This is compounded by the fact that of my 6 siblings and parents, 3 have the gap (got new passports quite recently) and 5 don't.

How should I write their names on the additional family information form?

edit: I personally am quite happy just to keep this spelling going forward. It wouldn't affect my life at all hardly.

We run into similar issues sometimes. We have a Di and then the rest of our last name. Formally, years ago it use to be separate, but the past few decades the family joined it all into one word, DiN******. Some places, especially my husbands employer still separate the two. We've just chosen to ignore it, because I think both ways are actually legally considered correct. I would like to hear others opinions on it too.
 
I was thinking about all this as well. We are writing an explanation for sometimes having different spellings of a surname - a letter J was added at times to reproduce a Slavic sound but we stopped using it now and just explained this in a separate sheet.

One question I do have is my wife's surname - her Canadian passport, Serbian passport, ID etc. have her surname as XXXX XXXX while her birth and marriage certificate has it as XXXX-XXXX. Has anyone had any problems with this? Don;t really know how to explain it so am confused as to what to do.