The Right to a Name and the Personality’s Rights

Abstract

This article is about the importance of a name, specifically the people’s surname mainly after marriage. At first, it will see how this question is in the current Civil Code, bringing up the possibilities of both add the opposite spouse’s surname reinforcing the constitutional principle of equality. It analyzes the spouses’ names in the marriage dissolution through separation and divorce. In the past legislation, at-fault divorce, if women lost in court she was obligated to use her before marriage’s surname. The new Civil Code allows the spouses to include the surnames of each other and both can lose the surname added in cases of lost in court. In no-fault divorce the spouses lost the right of using the surname added but can make an expressed request to keep it and prove that will have no damage for each other. In consensual judicial separation the spouses can maintain the surname added. On the other hand, in divorce keeping the spouse’s surname, for some people it is a mistake, once this is the definitive end of marriage. The restriction to use the marriage’s surname is present not only in Law divorce but also in convertion divorce. In the last case cited one must take into consideration what has been decided in the sentence of judicial separation. Once Law divorce or convertion divorce, the restriction to the added surname must be expressed request and show that the spouse that will have its added surname lost will not have any professional, social or affective damage or any other loss that may occur during the process. Losing or not the added surname has a close relation with the personality’s rights, because the entity’s name is a subjective right, it is the manner of identification and individualization of people in society, it is right to an identity, a fundamental right of the person which is the personality’s rights by Law.