But is it a law or just a cultural rule? Must a women do it?
neither.. it's a linguistic rule.. it's the feminine form..
Now I relly don't know what the rules for a woman born in Canada as Anna Kowalski would be if she wanted to get a Polish passport.
kowalska
Ok, but try puting that on an official form over here and it wouldn't be accepted, the clerk or computer will reject it as a different name.
kind of.. a bit of an explanation and it's not a problem
They even change others' names when refering to them??! Now that's just getting crazy! :D
poles do to
Having gone through this incredibly frustrating process recently, government bureaucrats WOULD NOT ALLOW me to take the feminine form of my surname (and yeah, Canadians are actually familiar with the term), even though I speak the language and use the feminine form in the Polish community..
on polish docs or canadian ones? if polish and you have polish paperwork that specifies the "£" then that's just weird..
Yep. We don't play that over here.
like i said, kind of.. both of my parents use their own forms and it doesn't seem to be an issue whatsoever... but sometimes people are surprised when i tell them who my mom is as they don't recognize our names as being the same..