What if I took my wife's name?
What if I took my wife's name?
A dashing septuagenarian, I'm finally planning to ask my long-sought bride to marry me, but I'm a little at a loss as to which surname would be best suited to our union. How does that work these days?
C, Nyon
Since 2013, Swiss law has provided that spouses and registered partners should each retain their own surname.
If each spouse keeps his or her own surname, it will be necessary to decide during the marriage preparation procedure which surname any future children of the couple will bear: for example, the children born of the union between Mrs Lamour and Mr Palaguerd (who have each kept their own surname) may bear either their mother's or their father's surname. However, it is not possible to stipulate that one of the couple's children will be called Lamour and the other Palaguerd,
However, during the preparatory procedure for marriage, the engaged couple can also decide and declare that they both wish to have the same surname from now on: they will then have to choose which of the two unmarried names they will use. Mr Palaguerd may thus decide to take his future wife's name, and will then be called Mr Lamour, while the bride will not change her name. In this case, the couple's children will automatically have Lamour as their surname.
It is currently no longer possible to register a double name, i.e. a single name followed by the family name without a hyphen, as was done a few years ago (Madame Lamour Palaguerd in our example), or a married name, i.e. a name made up of the two names joined by a hyphen. That said, this married name could appear on her identity card or passport if she so wished, as this is Swiss customary law, incorporated into the legislation on identity documents.
The disappearance of the alliance name has been widely criticised. In November 2021, the Legal Affairs Committee of the National Council, ruling on a parliamentary motion, came out in favour of developing a third option, which would allow the married name to be chosen as the official name. In future, therefore, spouses may have an even wider range of choices for determining their surname.
Finally, in the event of divorce or dissolution of the registered partnership, it is possible for the person who changed their name at the time of the union to revert to their unmarried name, simply by applying to the Civil Status Office.
