Documents for New Baby
- 08-30-2011, 07:39 PM #1Registered User
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- Aug 2011
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Documents for New Baby
Hi,
Looking for advice here regarding birth cert, ID card etc for new baby. My wife is a Mainland China citizen. I'm Irish. Both of us have temporary residency in HK (work visas) and she is due in Feb.
My questions are:
1. Does a child qualify for HK ID and HKSAR passport if only one parent is Chinese?
2. On the birth cert we can only provide a given name in English and/or Chinese. My surname is not Chinese. Does this mean that our child will not be able to have an English name based on my surname as well as a Chinese name based on her mother's surname on her ID card/HKSAR passport? I hear a Chinese name is required for a Home Return Permit, which my child will need.
3. If we put a full Chinese name (inc surname) with an English name in the given name part of the birth cert, will the Chinese characters be romanized and used as middle names on ID card and other docs?
4. Does anyone know of anyway to find a solution to these issues quickly after the baby is born-- we live and work between HK and China and intend to cross the border soon after hospital discharge?
Could badly do with some clarifications on these issues. Thanks
- 08-30-2011, 07:58 PM #2Registered User
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- May 2010
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1. Yes
2. For us, my daughter's English name is based on my husband's last name, for her Chinese name, we dropped the surname, so just whatever we named her in Chinese.
3. We used pinyin of her Chinese name as her middle name.
4. Go to birth registry, once you get the birth cert you can then head to HK Immigration office (we went to the one in Wanchai) and register for her PP and HKID.
Hope that helps.
- 08-30-2011, 08:04 PM #3
This is my understanding:
1. yes your child will be eligible for "right of abode" and therefore HKSAR passport due to your wife being ethnically Chinese
2. I have friends that did one of two things, either they used the wife's family name for the Chinese, or they "invented" a Chinese family name for the husband. It's your choice, as far as I understand...
3. You can choose to either put the romanised Chinese name or not. My husband and I had this debate because I wanted my kids to have an English middle name in addition to their Chinese name. I wanted to only have their English name in English, but we ended up agreeing to have their Chinese name hyphenated as one "name". Also up to you is whether you want the English name first, the Chinese name first, etc... The English name and the Chinese name are completely different and you can choose whether or not you want to have them the same or different.
I hope that helps...
- 08-30-2011, 10:40 PM #4Registered User
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Thank you both for your prompt replies. And yes, your answers help!
- 09-03-2011, 01:19 AM #5Registered User
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- Aug 2009
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I'm permanent HK resident & hubby is American and didn't choose a Chinese surname for his HKID.
Our daughter has right of abode in HK, therefore, she has permanent resident HKID and is a HKSAR passport holder.
Her English name on birth certificate is First name/ Middle name/ husband's Surname
Her Chinese name on birth certificate is a 3-character Chinese First name and NO Chinese surname
- 09-03-2011, 01:22 AM #6Registered User
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Oh, i think if I remember correctly, you child CANNOT have a different surname from father's (please double check)
Also, you have 40 days after baby is born to finish the process.
- 09-03-2011, 11:28 PM #7Registered User
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On hk birth cert, there is no surname column. I was told by birth registrar that HK law states a child born in HK takes the father's surname automatically. So, no box is needed!
However, my husband is not Chinese, so do not have a Chinese surname. My daughter takes my chinese surname. On the birth cert, her Chinese name is 3 character, one of them my surname. Her English name and her Chinese name is totally different. So, her english surname take after hubby's but Chinese name takes mine! This is fine in HK.
- 09-04-2011, 10:12 AM #8Registered User
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Thanks inkmink. This is what is hoping to hear -- and I have met one person who has this done, though her parents had the Chinese name added when she was an infant. So you just put the three Chinese characters, including your surname, in the given name section of the birth cert along with the English given name, correct?
And I presume, as nicolejoy mentioned above, you can request not to have the Chinese name romanised on the ID card and passport, to avoid the little one ending up with at least four given names!
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