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Dear Members,
I am an Indian and I have 2 first names and no surname in my present Indian passport.
The first half is my name and the second name is my father's name (as a lot of south indians have)
eg - mani chidambaram
I have applied for naturalisation now and expecting to apply for british passport soon.
I have been told by someone that I MUST have a surname when I apply for my Brit passport.
Can I use my second name in the surname column (eg - Chidambaram as surname and mani as first name?) when I apply without any problems or do I have to go through a solicitor for a name change? please advice.

mani2013 wrote:Dear Members,
I am an Indian and I have 2 first names and no surname in my present Indian passport.
The first half is my name and the second name is my father's name (as a lot of south indians have)
eg - mani chidambaram
I have applied for naturalisation now and expecting to apply for british passport soon.
I have been told by someone that I MUST have a surname when I apply for my Brit passport.
Can I use my second name in the surname column (eg - Chidambaram as surname and mani as first name?) when I apply without any problems or do I have to go through a solicitor for a name change? please advice.

If you only have two names, then you don't have a middle name. It's just name and surname so, yes you can use your second name as surname.

akhurshid wrote:

mani2013 wrote:Dear Members,
I am an Indian and I have 2 first names and no surname in my present Indian passport.
The first half is my name and the second name is my father's name (as a lot of south indians have)
eg - mani chidambaram
I have applied for naturalisation now and expecting to apply for british passport soon.
I have been told by someone that I MUST have a surname when I apply for my Brit passport.
Can I use my second name in the surname column (eg - Chidambaram as surname and mani as first name?) when I apply without any problems or do I have to go through a solicitor for a name change? please advice.

If you only have two names, then you don't have a middle name. It's just name and surname so, yes you can use your second name as surname.

I beg to differ, you cannot just swap names like that. It should match exactly what is on your other documents like birth cert, uni degree, passport etc. My name is similar to yours but I have always considered and written my father's name as surname. My wife has two first names and a surname but no middle names which sometimes creates issue when filling online forms but she wouldn't just put the second part of first name as a middle name.
Surely you must have faced this problem before when applying for visa and so on, just write what you wrote there. If you had visa etc with the same name then I dont see why it will be a problem with passport. Keep it consistent or it might be suspected as an attempt to change identity by the passport office.

What I have said is based on my wife's experience.
Being born and brought up in middle east, her full name was her first and second name and her father's full name(4 names in total).
We just took her father's name out on original passport and kept the second name as last. Never had a problem.

zeusmagnanimous wrote:

akhurshid wrote:

mani2013 wrote:Dear Members,
I am an Indian and I have 2 first names and no surname in my present Indian passport.
The first half is my name and the second name is my father's name (as a lot of south indians have)
eg - mani chidambaram
I have applied for naturalisation now and expecting to apply for british passport soon.
I have been told by someone that I MUST have a surname when I apply for my Brit passport.
Can I use my second name in the surname column (eg - Chidambaram as surname and mani as first name?) when I apply without any problems or do I have to go through a solicitor for a name change? please advice.

If you only have two names, then you don't have a middle name. It's just name and surname so, yes you can use your second name as surname.

I beg to differ, you cannot just swap names like that. It should match exactly what is on your other documents like birth cert, uni degree, passport etc. My name is similar to yours but I have always considered and written my father's name as surname. My wife has two first names and a surname but no middle names which sometimes creates issue when filling online forms but she wouldn't just put the second part of first name as a middle name.
Surely you must have faced this problem before when applying for visa and so on, just write what you wrote there. If you had visa etc with the same name then I dont see why it will be a problem with passport. Keep it consistent or it might be suspected as an attempt to change identity by the passport office.

Thank you Akhurshid and Zeusmagnanimous for your reply.
But I am more confused which advice to follow!!!!
My Driving license and all the other documents has my two names in full.
In my Indian passport my surname is blank.
In 'other names' - My full name is written.what shall i do?
Do you think I should still go through a solicitor for this change?
Thanks.

can someone plz advice??

In your Indian passport whatever surname appears keep the same one everywhere that should not be a problem. Stick with your father name as a surname always.