Miran, last year my husband who is from that part of India argued for about an hour with the officer and his manager at the birth registry. They refused to go with anything other than the father's last name (well, maybe they would have considered mother's last name but to my undying irritation my husband would not consider that). Finally, they said that birth certificate does not have a last name anyway... so just get whatever name you want put on the baby's passport. It's true that the birth certificate (in English) does not have a last name column; however the sticker they gave us for immigration has my husband's last name as my son's last name (not what we wanted) which means on some record somewhere that is the name registered. We were able to get the name we wanted on the Indian passport but it irritates me that the birth registry is so fascist about naming. I have a feeling they are more rigid with Chinese people because they told my husband for Chinese people this is how they do it - to which my husband pointed out we are not Chinese.

Apologies also that this is not relevant to the original thread. However, if anyone did manage to negotiate variation from the father's last name or else dictum in recent times please let me know as I will need to fight this battle again for my second child.