Attributes And Legal Regulation Of The Right Of Surname

As the most closely related and lifelong signals of consanguinity, surnames are the important markers and social networking tools which are of necessity to each person under all circumstances in the social structure. Moreover, it is the most direct form of carrying on the family line and worshiping the ancestors in the mainstream concepts of Chinese people. However, the study on surname specification attributes and legislation-related issues of surnames are sometimes easily neglected in China. Civil disputes that are caused by surname selections and changing has been constantly emerged with the rapid development of economic life and the increasingly awakening of civil rights consciousness. The lack of relative regulations and academic study has caused the incapability of dealing with the mass emergence of surname appeals and complicated law enforcement practice, not only leading to the disunity of registration and law enforcement standards and the disorder of management, but also resulting in the understanding deviation in judicial practice and the judgment anomie. Therefore, the urgent need for more comprehensive research on relevant issues for surname specification should be highlighted. Establishing a regulation model which differs from name selection and changing, and framing regulation limit will contribute to the solution of surname selection and changing problems, by supplying a code of conduct for surname selection and changing which meets the dignity of individual and the public interests, providing administration both procedure and entity regulations which are helpful to social control and convenient to operation, offering courts the specific review basis for relevant cases.The essay is composed by three major parts. In the first part, the author combs the history of domestic and international surnames and the current regulations first, digging out the unique characteristic of Chinese surnames. Then the author abstracts the particular function of family unity, culture inheritance, legal system establishment and social control from the long history of Chinese culture. In the second part, firstly the author introduces some views on the surname specification attributes in Chinese law science section, narrating the academic background and arguments of various views, analyzing and comparing the advantage and disadvantage of those views. Secondly, based on the current situation of surname selection and changing, the author comes up with the concept of surname right. The relationship between surname right and relevant rights is elaborated and analyzed, and accordingly the legal attributes of surname regulations are specified.In the third part, the author firstly presents and analyzes that different regulation model should be adopted to surname and given name, considering that difference legislation for surname and given name is about to be the common choice of legislation in other countries. Secondly, on the basis of the experience of foreign surname history and legislative provision, combined with the present situation and insufficiency of China’s surname application and registration, the author analyzes and designs the surname regulation from regulation establishment and enforcement. Two major issues are stressed and analyzed: one is the birth registration of surname, including selection scope and condition of surname; the other is the surname change registration issue, including change condition, selection scope and restoration after surname changing, and etc.