Turkish law treats a person’s name as one of the most fundamental attributes of individual identity. The full name, comprising both the given name and the surname, is recorded in the civil registry at birth and follows the individual throughout their legal life, appearing on all official documents, contracts, and court filings. Despite this foundational status, the name is not immutable. Turkish law recognizes that circumstances may arise in which a person’s registered name is incompatible with their lived identity, creates social or professional difficulties, or is otherwise unjust to bear. In such cases, a judicial remedy is available. The mechanism for changing a name in Turkey is governed by Article 27 of the Turkish Civil Code No. 4721 and is administered exclusively through the courts. There is no administrative route through which a name or surname may be altered without a court judgment.
The principle underlying the Turkish approach to name change is that names are not private matters left entirely to individual preference. Because a person’s name functions as a public identifier used in civil registry records, legal transactions, and relations with third parties, the law requires a substantiated justification before any change is permitted. The burden of demonstrating that justification rests entirely on the applicant.
The Statutory Framework Under Article 27 of the Turkish Civil Code
The foundational provision governing name changes in Turkish law is Article 27 of the Turkish Civil Code. This article establishes that the alteration of a name may only be requested from a judge on the basis of justified grounds. It further provides that upon approval of the request, the change is recorded in the civil registry and announced through the official announcement portal of the Press Advertising Authority, known as Basın İlan Kurumu, pursuant to an amendment introduced on November 14, 2024, by Law No. 7532. Crucially, the statute also makes clear that a change of name does not alter a person’s civil status. The identity of the individual, their family relationships, the validity of their contracts, and their rights and obligations remain exactly as they were before the name change.
Article 27 of the Turkish Civil Code: The alteration of a name may only be requested from a judge on the basis of justified grounds. The change of name is recorded in the civil registry and announced through the announcement portal of the Press Advertising Authority. A change of name does not alter a person’s civil status. A person who suffers damage as a result of the name change may file an action for the annulment of the change within one year from the date on which they learned of the change.
In addition to Article 27, the procedural aspects of name change cases are addressed in Article 36 of the Civil Registration Services Law No. 5490, which designates the Civil Court of First Instance as the court with subject-matter jurisdiction over civil registry correction and name change proceedings. The matter is also classified as a non-contentious judicial proceeding under Article 382 of the Code of Civil Procedure No. 6100, meaning that it is resolved through simplified procedural rules rather than the ordinary adversarial procedure applicable to contested civil disputes.
What Constitutes Justified Grounds
Article 27 of the Turkish Civil Code deliberately refrains from enumerating specific grounds for name change. The legislature left the assessment of whether a particular reason qualifies as a justified ground to the discretion of the judge, who is guided by the principle of equity under Article 4 of the Civil Code. Over decades of case law, the Court of Cassation has identified a range of circumstances that consistently qualify as justified grounds, though this body of precedent does not constitute an exhaustive list.
One of the most commonly accepted grounds is the discrepancy between a person’s registered name and the name by which they are actually known in their social environment. Turkish courts have long recognized that when a person has been called by a different name throughout their life by family, friends, and colleagues — while their official documents bear a different name — the resulting administrative friction and social dissonance constitutes a legitimate basis for change. The Court of Cassation has held in settled case law that the right to be known by the name one actually uses in life is a dimension of personal rights that the law should respect.
A second widely recognized ground is the ridiculous, offensive, or demeaning character of the registered name. Court of Cassation decisions have accepted name change requests where the applicant’s name carried a meaning that subjected them to mockery or derision, or where the name was associated with a historically or socially negative connotation. Names that are obscene, that reference animals in a pejorative context, or that carry meanings incompatible with human dignity have been treated as justifiable cases for change.
Difficulty of pronunciation constitutes a third established ground. Where a name is phonetically complex or unfamiliar to speakers of the language in the applicant’s environment — particularly in cases where a foreign-origin name cannot be easily rendered in Turkish — courts have accepted the practical difficulties this creates in daily life as a sufficient justification. This ground is particularly relevant for foreign nationals who have registered Turkish names that do not correspond to any name they actually use or recognize.
Religious conversion and change of nationality are also recognized as justifying grounds. When a person converts to a new religion, the retention of a name closely associated with a different religious tradition may conflict with their new identity, and courts have accepted this as a legitimate basis for change. Similarly, naturalization may generate a desire to adopt a name consistent with the culture or language of the new country of citizenship. However, Turkish courts have held that a person cannot adopt a surname belonging to a foreign language in place of their Turkish surname when the foreign surname itself has no connection to the applicant’s identity or background.
The existence of identical or nearly identical names and surnames within the same family or social community, creating persistent confusion in official records and daily life, has also been accepted as a justified ground in appropriate cases. Additionally, the association of a name with a traumatic personal experience or with a notorious or disreputable individual sharing the same name has been acknowledged in certain decisions as capable of meeting the threshold.
Surname Change and the Surname Law
Turkish law addresses given names and surnames through the same provision of the Civil Code, but the Surname Law No. 2525 imposes additional constraints on the permissible content of surnames. Under the Surname Law, surnames must comply with Turkish linguistic and cultural standards, and certain categories of surnames — including those that are offensive, that reference foreign cultures in a manner inconsistent with national values, or that take the form of a foreign surname without connection to the applicant — are not permissible. This means that the court assessing a surname change petition must evaluate not only whether the applicant has presented a justified ground but also whether the requested new surname satisfies the substantive requirements of the Surname Law.
One practical implication of this framework is that a Turkish citizen who has married a foreign national and has been using that spouse’s foreign surname in the country of residence cannot generally obtain a judgment in Turkey replacing their Turkish surname with the foreign one, unless specific circumstances justify an exception.
When a married man obtains a court judgment changing his surname, the new surname automatically extends to his wife during the subsistence of the marriage and to their minor children, without any separate court proceeding. This ripple effect must be taken into account when deciding whether and how to pursue a surname change, as it affects the civil registry records of other family members.
The Court Proceeding: Competence, Venue, and Procedure
Name change proceedings in Turkey are heard by the Civil Court of First Instance. The court with territorial jurisdiction is the court at the place where the applicant has their registered residence. For Turkish citizens residing abroad who wish to initiate name change proceedings in Turkey, jurisdiction is determined by reference to their last known place of residence in Turkey, and in the absence of such a place, the provisions of the Act on International Private and Procedural Law may apply to determine the appropriate venue.
The Civil Registry Directorate is named as the formal respondent in name change proceedings. This is a procedural requirement rather than an indication of genuine adversarial opposition. The Civil Registry Directorate does not, in practice, contest the merits of most name change applications; it participates in the proceedings because the outcome directly affects the official records it maintains and because a formal respondent is required even in non-contentious proceedings.
The applicant must file a petition with the competent court setting out the full particulars of their current registered name, the name they wish to adopt, and the factual and legal basis for the request. The petition must be accompanied by a copy of the applicant’s identity document and their civil registry extract. The petition should be drafted with care, as courts assess the coherence and credibility of the justification presented, and a petition that fails to articulate a genuine and substantiated ground may result in rejection without the opportunity to cure the deficiency.
Because the proceeding is classified as non-contentious, the simplified procedural rules under the Code of Civil Procedure apply. The court may schedule one or more hearings and typically orders an investigation through law enforcement authorities to verify whether the applicant is actually known by the name they claim to use in their social environment. Witness testimony is the most common form of evidence relied upon to establish social recognition under a different name. In cases where the ground is more objective in character — such as the offensive meaning of a name or its phonetic difficulty — witness evidence may be less central, and the judge may reach a conclusion on the basis of the petition and identity documents alone.
Evidence, Proof, and the Judge’s Discretion
The burden of proving that the grounds for a name change exist rests on the applicant. Turkish law permits the use of any legally recognized form of evidence to discharge this burden, and the choice of evidence will depend on the nature of the ground being relied upon. For social recognition claims, testimony from family members, neighbors, colleagues, and community members is typically the most persuasive form of evidence. For claims based on offensive meaning or linguistic difficulty, the court may rely on its own assessment supplemented by any supporting documentation the applicant provides.
The judge retains broad discretion under Article 4 of the Civil Code to assess whether the evidence presented establishes a justified ground and to weigh the applicant’s interest in the name change against any competing public interest in the stability of civil registry records. This discretion means that the outcome of name change proceedings is not always predictable, and the manner in which the application is presented and argued can significantly influence the result.
Where the court grants the name change, the judgment becomes final after the expiration of the appeal period, which begins on the date of notification of the reasoned judgment. An appeal may be filed with the regional court of appeal, and a further appeal to the Court of Cassation is available in limited circumstances. Once the judgment becomes final, the court transmits it to the Press Advertising Authority for announcement through the official portal and subsequently to the relevant Civil Registry Directorate for registration. The new name takes legal effect from the date of registration in the civil registry.
Third-Party Challenges and the Limits of Res Judicata
Article 27 of the Civil Code expressly provides that a person who suffers damage as a result of a name change may file an action for the annulment of the change within one year from the date on which they learned of it. This provision acknowledges that a name change can, in certain circumstances, affect the rights or interests of third parties — for instance, where the adoption of a new name creates confusion with an established business name, a professional reputation, or the identity of another individual. The one-year period for challenging a name change begins to run not from the date of the judgment or its registration, but from the date on which the third party actually learned of the change.
It is also important to note that judgments in name change proceedings do not produce res judicata in the traditional sense. A rejected application does not permanently bar the applicant from filing a new application based on different or newly arising grounds. This position was confirmed by a 2012 ruling of the Constitutional Court, which struck down a statutory provision that had previously limited name change proceedings to a single attempt per person, finding that such a restriction unconstitutionally constrained the exercise of personal rights.
Civil Registry – Attorney Ozan Soylu in Istanbul
Attorney Ozan Soylu is a practicing lawyer based in Istanbul, advising and representing clients in civil registry matters, including name and surname change proceedings before the Civil Courts of First Instance. His practice covers applications by both Turkish citizens and foreign nationals seeking to regularize their registered name in Turkey, as well as cases involving the correction of civil registry records and cross-border personal status issues.
For all legal matters concerning Turkish law, you can reach out to Attorney Ozan Soylu. Legal consultancy and representation services are provided with a dedicated approach for foreign nationals. To submit your questions, contact us.
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