Male Surname?

This form dynamically changes the labels for the Surname and Forename field based on the value of the Gender field. Wut?

Because a Male Surname is totally distinct and nothing like a Female Surname, I guess?!?

A form asking for Surname, Forename and Gender (with options Male, Female, and Both) changes its labels to e.g. Male Surname/Male Forename or Female Surname/Female Forename when the Gender option is changed.

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3 comments

  1. Tulip Tulip says:

    Do any patronymic/matronymic surnames vary based on gender of the child? That’s my best guess for this oddness.

    1. Dan Q Dan Q says:

      They certainly do: traditional Icelandic names, for example, and some Polish names, do exactly that.

      But it still seems… odd. Clearly the subject of the form is the person whose birth certificate is being applied for, and their forename and surname… are still just their forename and surname! (If they’re gendered names in the ways described above, it doesn’t make a difference to the fact that they’re still their “surname” and “forename”, and so adding a gender prefix to the form seems… really odd!

  2. Spencer Spencer says:

    I thought it might be some interesting quirk of translation from some language with the noun declension…then I clicked the link and saw it’s a Scottish government page without even a Scots version.

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